IN MEMORIAM 



John Crowell, M. D. 



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Haverhill, Mass. 



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PREFACE. 

It is believed that many who carry in their hearts 
the remembrance of Dr. Crowell's spoken and writ- 
ten utterances will value a memorial of them in a 
form which will help to keep his personality as a vivid 
and living presence. His words were indeed but 
a small part of the man, and it is perhaps not the 
choicest or most eloquent which are given here. Still 
these selections from his writings will fulfill their 
aim if they represent Dr. Crowell in varied aspects of 
his character, and recall and fix impressions which his 
strong individuality made upon those who knew him, 
if they reveal not only his brilliant and versatile intel- 
lect, but the warmth and tenderness of his heart, and if 
those who loved him and whom he loved till the end, 
feel on reading them, as if his voice were still speaking 
and his influence still reaching forth to them, from 
the larger life to which he has gone. 



CONTENTS, 



Page. 

I. SKETCH OF DR. CROWELL. .... 9 

II. CLUB PAPERS. 

Some Curiosities in Literature, - - 29 

Sources of the English Language, - - 65 

III. ADDRESSES. 

Address Delivered before the Mass. Medical 

Society, 97 

Address on the Presentation of the Portrait 
of Harriet Newell to the Bradford Acad- 
emy, 133 

IV. SELECTIONS. 

A Personal Experience, - - - 143 

The Old Bridge, - - - - 149 

Summer Talk, - - - - - 155 

About Dogs, ...... 161 

The Old Burying Ground, - - - 164 

Shade Trees, - - - - - - 167 

The Old Meeting-house, - - - 173 

Boys, - - - - - - - 176 

Response at a Dinner of the Mass. Medical 

Society, ...... 181 

Response at the One Hundredth Anniversary 

.Dinner at Atkinson Academy, - - 186 

School Exhibitions, - - - - 190 

Church Music — A Fragment, - - 196 

Over, ------- 199 



CONTENTS— Continued. 



V. POETRY. 



Poem Read at the Twenty- fifth Anniversary 

of the Monday Evening Club, - - 207 

May Storm on the Merrimack in 1808, - 219 

An October Idyl, ----- 223 

A Memory — Rev. B. F. H., - 226 

In Memoriam — M. W. W., - - - 229 

Belle, ------- 231 

In Peace, ------ 233 

The Burial — B. F. G., - - - - 236 

The Old Ship- Yard, 1835, - " - 2 3^ 

In Olden Time, ------ 242 

Poem Read at the Bi- centennial of the 

Bradford Church, ----- 249 



B 



IOGRAPHICAL bKETCH. 



Biographical Sketch. 



Dr. John Crowell was the son of John and Anne 
(Greenleaf) Crowell, and was born in Water Street, 
Haverhill, September 28, 1823. His early education 
was chiefly under the direction of his maternal uncle, 
Benjamin Greenleaf, the celebrated teacher and math- 
ematician, whom he greatly loved and revered and 
under whom he fitted for college. His health ren- 
dered him unable to pursue his studies for a time, but 
afterwards, although he did not enter college, he kept 
abreast with its curriculum. 

He spent several years in teaching, becoming at 
the age of twenty-one, Principal of the School Street 
Grammar School in this city, where he won a marked 
reputation as an instructor. Among his pupils were 
many who have since attained distinction in public 
affairs, or have filled useful and honorable positions 



ro In Memoriam 



in private life and who have occasion for gratitude to 
Dr. Crowell for the instruction and influence under 
whose impulse the foundations of character and 
future success were laid. 

The work of teaching was resigned for the study of 
medicine under the direction of Dr. George Cogs- 
well of Bradford, who had a wide reputation as a 
practitioner of medicine and surgery. This study 
was continued under Professor James McClintock in 
Philadelphia, and afterwards in the Pennsylvania Hos- 
pital in the same city. In 1850 he was graduated 
with honor from the Philadelphia College of Medi- 
cine, and in 185 1 began practice in his native city. 

Here he resided during the rest of his life, be- 
coming known not only as a physician, but in con- 
nection with numerous important positions of trust. 
For many years he was a member of the School 
Board, generally as its chairman. In 1878 he was 
elected one of the Trustees of the Haverhill Public 
Library. In 1880 he was made chairman of the 
recently established Board of Health. On the estab- 
lishment of the City Hospital in 1882, he was ap- 
pointed one of the Trustees, and on the organization 
of the Board was chosen secretary. In 1883 he be- 
came a Trustee of Bradford Academy and was elected 
secretary of the Board, and was for years lecturer 



Dr. CrowelL n 



upon architecture and literature at that Institution. 

In 1856 Dr. Crowell was made a Fellow of the 
Massachusetts Medical Society, and in 1881 and 1882 
was president of the Essex North District Medical 
Society, which is a branch of the State Society. 

In August, 1883, he was appointed one of the Con- 
sulting Board of Physicians at Danvers Asylum by 
the Trustees of that Institution. 

Besides the duties of his profession, Dr. CrowelPs 
literary labors were many and varied. Among the 
papers written for the Massachusetts Medical Society 
may be mentioned the following : Diseases of the 
Rectum, 1856; Relations of Membranous Croup to 
Diphtheria ; Asiatic Cholera, read before the New 
Hampshire Medical Society, 1873 ; Anomalies in 
Pregnancy, Massachusetts Society, 1878; the Human 
Brain and some of its Phenomena, Essex Medical 
Society, 1876. In June, 1884, in response to an invi- 
tation to give the annual address before the Massa- 
chusetts Medical Society, he delivered an eloquent 
oration which has since been published, entitled "The 
Physician a Popular Educator." 

In 1876, at the invitation of the City Government, 
he delivered the address on the occasion of the cen- 
tennial anniversary of our national independence. 
He was also chosen to deliver the poem at the 250th 



12 In Memoriam 



anniversary of the settlement of Haverhill, and this 
poem, previously prepared, was read on that occasion, 
two months after his death. 

Dr. Crowell was one of the original members of 
the Haverhill Monday Evening Club, established in 
i860, and took a lively interest in the social and lit- 
erary life of that organization. 

Among the numerous lectures, essays, reviews and 
other papers written by him for clubs, literary socie- 
ties and periodicals, may be mentioned the following : 
John Ruskin, Michael x\ngelo, Architecture, Sources 
of the English Language, Thomas a Becket, Charles 
Lamb, English Literature in the 18th Century, Mod- 
ern Homes, etc. He also wrote much for the local 
press, chiefly as a critic in art and literature. 

Dr. Crowell was twice married; first, June 7, 1854, 
to Sarah Bradley Johnson, daughter of Samuel John- 
son. They had one child, William Henry, born Octo- 
ber 6, 1857 ; died September 16, 1858. Dr. Crowell's 
first wife died October 21, 1859. October 3T, 186 1, 
he married Caroline Corliss, daughter of Ephraim 
Corliss, Haverhill. 

Dr. Crowell became connected with the Center 
Congregational Church in 1849 and filled many re- 
sponsible positions in the various departments of its 
work, as superintendent of the Sunday School, as 



Dr. Crow ell. 13 



clerk of the church, and as deacon for the twenty- 
years preceding his death. 

He organized, and for many years taught, a Sunday 
School class of young men, the numbers of which 
ranged from forty or fifty to seventy and make up a 
total that can be reckoned only by hundreds. 

During the closing months of his life Dr. Crowell 
was an intense sufferer from the disease that ended in 
his death, April 28, 1890, at the age of sixty-six 
years, seven months. The public funeral services 
were held at 2.30 p. m., May 1, at the Center Church 
where a large concourse of mourners assembled, 
members of the Monday Evening Club, the Crowell 
Society of Christian Endeavor, the Sunday School 
class of the deceased, Medical Associations, Trustees of 
the Public Library, Trustees of the Haverhill City 
Hospital and Trustees of Bradford Academy. After 
the singing of the anthem, "I heard a Voice from 
Heaven," by the choir, composed of Miss Knight, 
Mrs. Emerson, Messrs. Hartwell and Dole, there fol- 
lowed the reading of Scripture selections and remarks 
by the pastor, Rev. E. C. Holman, who dwelt touch- 
ingly upon the noble qualities of the deceased ; sing- 
ing, " Abide with Me," by the choir • remarks by Rev. 
J. D. Kingsbury, D. D. ; singing, "Lead, Kindly 
Light " ; and prayer by the pastor. The beautiful 



14 In Memoriam 



floral tributes gave evidence of the love and lasting 
remembrance of many friends. At the conclusion of 
the services the remains were borne to Linwood Cem- 
etery, where on a beautiful southern slope overlook- 
ing the river and valley that Dr. Crowell loved so well, 
they were laid to rest, "in the hope of a blessed 
immortality." 

This brief sketch of a life now completed can give 
but a faint conception of the many and various activi- 
ties which filled it to the brim, but it will in itself 
suggest something of the character and ability of Dr. 
Crowell, and of the regard in which he was held by 
his fellow citizens. The public press at the time of 
his death abounded in expressions of this regard, 
which was still further evinced by memorial tributes 
paid to him on several occasions, especially at the 
annual meeting in December of the Whittier Club of 
Haverhill, of which Dr. Crowell was the president 
and leading spirit. 

Above all these, might be placed those spontaneous 
expressions of feeling from the multitude who had 
known him more or less intimately in the various pri- 
vate relations of life. "How much he will be missed ! " 
" No one can fill his place ! " were words which were 
echoed from lip to lip, and the truth of which the 
months that have passed since his death have too 



Dr, Crow ell. 



J 5 



fully proved. He has indeed been missed in many 
ways and places — in the sick chamber, where he was 
the physician not only of the body, but also of the 
soul, in the Public Library, the hospital, the church, 
the Sunday School, the social gathering. His friendly 
greeting, his ever ready counsel, his quick suggestion, 
his indignant protest against what was unseemly or 
unworthy, have been and will long continue to be 
missed. It seemed the very irony of fate, that he 
should have been forbidden by a few weeks to live to 
be a part of the city anniversary — that he, the poet, 
the antiquarian, the lover of Haverhill, who above 
all would have honored the occasion and been 
honored by it, should have been able to give to it 
only his dying legacy of historic verse. 

Yet he will always remain, almost as living and 
moving still, among those who walk the streets of 
Haverhill where there was no more conspicuous 
figure or noble presence than his. With his native 
city he had associated all that he was and all that he 
did, and his death snapped another link in the chain 
which unites the elder town with the bustling city of 
a later day. 

He delighted in the natural scenery of Haverhill 
and some of the most beautiful of the poetical selec- 
tions which follow, express the charm which he found 



1 6 In Memoriam 



in its skies and hills, its blossoming meadows, its 
noble river. Equally with the scenery of the town, 
he loved its traditions, its historic sites, its romantic 
associations. He felt, too, a vivid interest in what- 
ever concerned its material and spiritual progress, its 
adornment and purifying, and honorable name. 

By natural charac eristics as well as by training he 
was eminently a power for good as a citizen. A 
younger physician who knew Dr. Crowell well thus 
spoke of him in one of the most beautiful and tender 
tributes to his memory : " Forceful and energetic, 
intent on results, yet willing to yield when others 
pointed out the better way ; of the purest habit of 
action, speech and even thought ; of no dull temper 
but easily roused to a righteous wrath when occasion 
seemed meet ; kindly affectioned, interested in gen- 
eral affairs, fond of social pleasures ; of a fine pres- 
ence, with a good voice, an unusual dignity, a courtly 
bearing — such a man it is not an every-day fortune to 
know and to lose." 

Much as Dr. Crowell enjoyed the beautiful in 
nature, literature and art, he was no mere idealist. 
Every good cause found in him a ready sympathizer. 
With activities tireless beyond the power or willing- 
ness of most, he gave to the need of his fellow men 
not money alone but time and thought, the treasures 



Dr. Crowell. 17 



of a cultured mind, the influence of glowing speech 
and facile pen. Rapid in thought and ready in ex- 
pression, it was a delight to him to embody the re- 
sults of historical or literary research in some essay 
for an evening club, but no less so to throw off, glow- 
ing from the anvil of thought, some bright bit of 
humor, some dash of- criticism, some rapid summary 
of a new book, so that the columns of the Haverhill 
Bulletin often held articles from his pen, of a grace 
and sparkle and vigor that suggested Addison or 
Lamb or Sydney Smith, and were certainly surprising 
as coming from a busy man, to whom literary pursuits 
could be little more than a recreation from more en- 
grossing work. 

And how unmistakably were they his ! If he ever 
tried to disguise his personality, it was sure to peep 
forth in some subtle turn of thought or trenchant 
phrase. How tender, kindly and apt were the words 
which he gave to the memory of the dead, and who 
can ever speak so fitly of him as he spoke of those 
friends who went before him to the unseen world ? 

Yet his spoken words possessed a force and spirit 
even beyond the written. Let some earnest occasion 
touch and quicken his feelings and the whole soul of 
the man would spring into vivid and intense activity. 
How surely did he say the thing that should be said ; 
how unfailingly did the arrows of those "winged 



1 8 In Memoriam 



words" hit the mark ; how well he understood the 
power of good plain English to reach the hearts of his 
hearers. Often amidst the little company gathered 
for their stated Thursday evening worship in the 
vestry of the Center Church, would he take up the 
theme of the hour very calmly and quietly, and, as he 
went on, find new suggestion and illustration, till in 
himself and others there was kindled a glow that 
seemed hardly less than inspiration. 

It would be hard to tell what he was to his large 
Sunday School class, but the memory and influence of 
it remain with the scores of young men, for whom, 
like Goldsmith's preacher, 

"He tried each art, reproved each dull delay, 
Allured to brighter worlds, and led the way." 

This was Dr. Crowell's most congenial and fruitful 
field of usefulness. He delighted in opening his 
heart and home to the young men who came within 
his reach, not only in connection with his Sunday 
School class but in many other ways. By word and 
example he thus became the awakener of a new in- 
tellectual and spiritual life in numbers through whom 
the power of his influence still lives. The calls upon 
him for professional and public service seemed never 
to stand in the way of those opportunities, constantly 
occurring, of giving individual help and sympathy. 



Dr. Crow ell. 19 



That he could bestow himself thus generously in 
varied directions indicates the versatility of powers 
which was perhaps the most remarkable thing about 
him. He did so many things so well. He could 
always find time for something more, and it was all 
so easy and spontaneous that no one of the many 
who came and went, realized his special debt. And 
though these ceaseless ministrations could not be 
otherwise than a tax upon the vital powers, yet he 
found in them a deep, inward joy and a perpetual re- 
freshment. 

While thus seeing much of the serious side of life, 
his soul was always open to all genial and sunshiny 
influences and full of the keenest sense of wit and 
humor in literature and of the ludicrous in every-day 
experiences. His abandon was as genuine as that of 
a boy and made his conversation varied and delight- 
ful. Now, it would be some sudden witticism of his 
own ; now an apt quotation from Dickens ; now a 
personal reminiscence in which a joke whose point, 
turned against himself, afforded him the keenest en- 
joyment. Perhaps he would catch sight of a picture 
of Lake Como and the name would recall some 
memorable evening on which, when a medical student 
long before, he saw a performance of the Lady of 
Lyons. Straightway in ten minutes' time, you 



20 In Memoriam 



had a miniature reproduction of the play, where — you 
could scarcely tell how — scenery and stage-setting 
were supplied to your imagination, and there was 
Claude, and here, Pauline, while Dr. Crowell was 
both and all the actors besides, and when the curtain 
dropped and the audience of two or three had leisure 
to recover breath, you said, " What a marvellous bit 
of art." 

Whatever he enjoyed thus became a part of him- 
self, from which he could impart to the pleasure of 
others. Every visitor to his hospitable home will 
remember how he lent wings to the hours by lively 
anecdote, happy jest or sudden bit of mimicry, as 
well as by more earnest thought or comment on the 
themes that were engrossing the minds of men in the 
realm of politics, science or theology. In the dwelling 
which his cultured taste had made so beautiful with 
his favorite books and pictures, his conversation was 
the chief charm and his presence was a never-failing 
sunshine. 

Always was he alive to the finger-tips, touching 
outward existence in a thousand ways, and finding in 
it an overflow of blesssing. Life was sweet and good 
to him, for he knew the blessed art of drawing the 
best out of men and circumstances. On his sunny 
bank, the first crocuses of the year blossomed ; no 



Dr. CrowelL 21 



garden-plot was so dainty, so velvety green, so kindly 
inviting to the gaze of every passer-by. Especially 
was he happy in that home life to which he gave the 
best of himself, the freshest and brightest of his talk, 
and to the heart of which he retreated, when the 
cares of outside life permitted, with a sense of secur- 
ity and repose that no trouble ever touched and that 
the lapse of years rendered only more deep and 
complete. 

This home life, always dear and sweet, became 
doubly so during those final weeks and months spent 
in the brave, patient struggle with suffering and 
disease. 

As the intellectual and social activities which had 
been a joy in days of health and vigor became more 
and more difficult, his soul struck the deeper roots 
downward towards the sweet, unfailing fountains that 
love and friendship, and especially the ministries of 
the household circle supplied. 

His tender appreciation of these may be best illus- 
trated by the following pathetic verses : 

MY LOVED ONES. 

My friends to me are more than kind, 
They hourly lavish gifts on me ; 

I seek in vain the words to find, 
To tell how rich and good they be. 



22 In Mem or lain 



I breathe a wish, they run to me 
To serve my will with loving care \ 

Whate'er I think or do or see, 

They in the blest experience share. 

They come to me when o'er my head 
The cloud of sorrow settles fast ; 

They share my pain and lift the dread, 
And wait till shades are overpast. 

My home is filled with sweetest sounds, 
Each voice is music to my ear ; 

My inward life with peace abounds, 
My rest is found securely here. 

And so I lift my thanks to Him, 
Who sendeth all these gifts to me ; 

My faith is weak — my sight is dim, 

Bat love and friends shall changeless be. 

Thanksgiving after sickness, February 22, 1889. 

Dr. CrowelPs wearying and distressing illness was 
borne with quiet fortitude, and, though he had hoped 
to live a little longer to carry out certain plans to a 
complete fulfillment, yet the end was peace and un- 
questioning submission to the decree which called 
him hence. 



Dr. Crow ell. 23 



To what has already been here said of Dr. Crowell, 
many tender and fitting words might be added from 
those numerous expressions of affection and respect 
made at the time of his death. 

Dr. Crowell's life long friend and early instructor, 
the venerable Dr. George Cogswell, spoke thus of his 
public and professional career : 

"Dr. Crowell was the physician of many of the 
older and permanent families of Haverhill. As a 
practitioner, he was judicious, careful and attentive. 
No extravagance in practice or price marked his 
course. No poor widow ever complained that she 
had spent all her living on this physician and was 
nothing bettered, but rather grew worse. He walked 
the streets of Haverhill, unchallenged as a poet, 
scholar and Christian gentleman. 

"In 1830,1 commenced the practice of medicine 
and surgery in the town where I now reside. The 
subject of these remarks was then a stripling of about 
eight, bright, clean, scholarly and courteous with all 
the promise of his bearing in future years. I pass on 
to 1847, when he and his intimate friend Luther John- 
son, who had just graduated from Dartmouth, became 
my pupils in medicine. They entered my dissecting 
room and with enthusiasm commenced a three years' 
course in medicine, during which time they attended 



24 In Memoriam 



full courses of lectures at the Pennsylvania University 
with the advantages of all the hospitals of the city of 
Philadelphia. 

" Several years since, Dr. Crowell gave the annual 
address before the Massachusetts Medical Society in 
Boston — always regarded as an honorable distinction, 
made from merit. On my way from the hall to the 
dinner-table, walking in company with Doctors Jarvis 
and Bowditch, Dr. Jarvis said, ' This is the best 
address we have had for twenty years — his manner 
fine, his enunciation and voice perfect ;' to all of 
which Dr. Bowditch said amen. The authority of 
Dr. Jarvis on this subject would not be questioned." 

The poet Whittier, in a letter written at the time of 
Dr. Crowell's death, says : "In the long annals of 
his and my native city there is no memorial of a 
truer and worthier man. He was the ' beloved physi- 
cian ' whose presence in the sick chamber was a bene- 
diction, and by the public at large he was loved and 
honored as a genial, benevolent and active citizen, 
interested in every good cause and work. 

He had all the rare and beautiful characteristics of a 
Christian gentleman. He made me richer by his 
friendship. In looking forward to the near close of 
a prolonged' life I have been pleased to think of 
him as one who might speak kindly and tenderly of 



Dr. CrowelL 25 



me in the clul>which honors me by its name, and of 
which he was the founder and president. It seems 
strange that he should pass before me, into the great 
mystery towards which we are all moving, where the 
mercy of the all-merciful is our only ground of hope 
and confidence. 

I greatly regret that I cannot be present at the 
funeral and unite with you in the last office which 
affection can render to one who has done so much for 
others ; but if not in person, in spirit I shall find a 
place in the great circle of mourning friends which 
will surround his grave. 

I am truly thy friend, 

John G. Whittier. 

Thus a good and noble life is perpetuated in the 
grateful memory of those who have been made hap- 
pier and better by its influence. We cannot think of 
such strength and tenderness, such intellectual bright- 
ness and wide-reaching activities as lost to the world. 
From some wider realm they are surely helping and 
blessing us still, while in the results of their exercise 
while we knew them here, 

" Their echoes roll from soul to soul, 
And grow forever and forever,' ' 



Club Papers. 



SOME CURIOSITIES OF LITERATURE. 

Monday Evening Club, November 26 , 1883. 



When Aunt Ophelia asked that nondescript sprite, 
Topsy, "Who made you?" her answer was full of a 
profound principle, " I wan'tmade, I specs I growed." 
This principle of evolution can be well applied to the 
origin of a certain kind of literature that abounds in 
our language, and forms an essential element in all 
colloquial expressions. Who made the epigrams and 
the familiar sayings that have become universal 
property and are daily used as household words ? If 
we attempt to trace their authorship we shall find that 
no one writer is responsible for their origin, but that 
they are like Topsy, the result of a growth that would 
puzzle any mental evolutionist to trace back to a 
primary protoplasm. 

If we make a close and critical study into the origin 
of these fugitive scraps of literature that have become 



30 In Memoriam 



common property, we shall find that like most other 
forms of civilization they have come to us from the 
east. The proverb, the fable, the parable, as well as 
the epigram, are tinged with the glow of oriental color- 
ing, and the folk lore of Germany and Scandinavia is 
but the repetition of the wisdom of the Aryan races 
coming down to us in luminous splendor through the 
long stretch of centuries. But it is not the purpose 
of this paper to go into this minute study, but rather 
to confine our observation to the more recent and obvi- 
ous evolution of the trite sayings gf our own English 
speech. 

Take for instance the trite expression of Dr. 
Franklin in Poor Richard's Almanac, " God helps 
them who help themselves." We find that Herbert 
in his " Jacula Prudentium " has used the same idea 
when he says : " Help thyself, and God will help 
thee." Fontaine in his Fables also says : "Aid thy- 
self and Heaven will aid thee," and Sophocles in one of 
his " Fragments " has it in this wise : " Heaven ne'er 
helps the man who will not ask." 

When John Wesley in his famous sermon on Dress 
gave the trite apothegm, " Cleanliness is next to Godli- 
ness," he was credited with the authorship of a very 
clever saying. But Bacon a hundred years before, 
in his " Advancement of Learning " had said : "Clean- 



Dr. Crowe IL 31 



liness of body was ever esteemed to proceed from a 
due reverence to God," 

Gray's famous expression in his lines on a distant 
view of Eton, 

" Where ignorance is bliss 
Tis folly to be wise," 

is often quoted ; but Prior had said in his lines to 
Hon. Charles Montague, 

" From ignorance our comfort flows, 
The only wretched are the wise." 

And the wise man in Ecclesiastes exclaims, " He 
that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow", 1:18. 

The capital axiom, " Facts are stubborn things," was 
uttered both by Smollett and by Elliot, but Smollett 
took it from "Gil Bias" in his translation of that work. 
The origin of the famous sarcasm, " Speech was 
given to man to conceal his thoughts," has been 
almost universally attributed to Voltaire, who used it 
in 1763. But Goldsmith in 1759 said: "The true 
use of speech is not so much to express our thoughts 
as to conceal them." And before this, Young had 
written in one of his satires : "And men talk only 
to conceal the mind," And earlier still, the celebra- 
ted Dr. South in one of his sermons, 1676, expresses 



32 In Memoriam 



the satire in this wise : " Speech was given to the 
ordinary wit of man whereby to communicate their 
mind ; but to wise men, whereby to conceal it," 

Hazlitt in his "Wit and Humor" ascribes to Robert 
Walpole the famous phillipic, "The gratitude of 
place-expectants is a lively sense of future favors ; " 
but the lively Frenchman, Francis Due De Roche- 
foucauld, had for one of his noted maxims the same 
idea, "The gratitude of most men is but a secret 
desire of receiving greater benefits." 

We recall the story of the good lady who wept 
when told that Laurence Sterne's " God tempers the 
wind to the shorn lamb," was not in the Bible. This 
beautiful expression has a French origin, and is found 
in the works of Henri Estienne, who wrote in 1594. 
Herbert in his " Jacula Prudentium" also says, " To 
a close-shorn sheep, God gives wind by measure." 

A few years ago, in a social religious meeting in 
Haverhill, a zealous sister arose and with great unction, 
said, " Every tub must stand upon its own bottom, as 
the Scripture says." This universal sentiment of in- 
dividual responsibility, although not in the sacred 
volume, is found in Bunyan's " Pilgrim's Progress ; " 
in " Ray's Maxims ; " and in Macklen's " Man of the 
World." 



Dr. CrowelL 33 



A good deacon of my acquaintance when he wished 
to make a strong point against an angry man used to 
say, u He was mad as a March hare," which expres- 
sion I attributed to the fervid deacon's originality of 
utterance. I found, however, that old Skelton as 
long ago as 1520 made use of the same terse formula. 

What is the evolution of the profound statement, 
" The moon is made of green cheese? " It is found 
in Rabelais, Book I, Ch. xi ; and in Butler's Hudibras ; 
and in many other quaint writers. The profound 
satire, " The Remedy is worse than the Disease," has 
a prolific paternity ; Bacon, Beaumont and Fletcher, 
Suckler and Dryden, have all had a hand in this curt 
old saw, which has served its purpose and is bound to 
live to a good old age. 

" Wherever God erects a house of prayer, 
The devil always builds a chapel there," 

was written by De Foe in his " Well-born English- 
man." The same theological truism has been in sub- 
stance expressed by Drummond, George Herbert, 
and Burton in his " Anatomy of Melancholy." 

Those familiar and remarkable quotations from 
Richard III.— 

" Off with his head, so much for Buckingham ! " 
and " Conscience avaunt ! Richard's himself again," 



34 In Memoriam 



do not appear in the original text, but were introduced 
by Colley Cibber in adapting the play for the stage. 

In the early days of the last Century, John Byron 
wrote a phillipic on the feuds existing between those 
great composers Bonocini and Handel, in which oc- 
curs the following passage : 

" Some say, compared to Bonocini 
That Mynheer Handel's but a ninny ; 
Others aver that he to Handel 
Is scarcely fit to hold a candle. 
Strange all this difference should be 
Twixt Tweedledum and Tweedledee." 

These last two lines, so often quoted, have been at- 
tributed to Swift and to Pope, although they are not 
found in any of their works. 

Sometimes we find an odd recognition of some fact 
in physical science like the following from "Pericles", 
Act ii. Sc. i. 

3rd Fisherman. " Master, I marvel how the fishes 
live in the sea? " 

1 st Fisherman. "Why as men do a-land ; the 
great ones eat up the little ones." 

A profound statement of the survival of the fittest. 

And Dean Swift sets forth the theory of parasites 
in a very clever satire. 



Dr. Crowe 11. 35 



" So, naturalists observe, a flea 
Has smaller fleas that on him prey ; 
And these have smaller still to bite 'em 
And so proceed ad infinitum." 

It is interesting to note the similarity of expression 
that characterizes certain descriptions of nature among 
the poets of the different epochs of our literature. 
Thus Shakespeare in personifying morning, uses that 
familiar passage in Romeo and Juliet — 

" Night's candles are burned out and jocund day 
Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain's top." 

And Milton has it — 

" The meek-eyed morn appears, mother of dews, 
At first faint dawning in the dappled East." 

Thomson changes the image a little — 

" But yonder comes the powerful king of day 
Rejoicing in the East." 

Byron imitates Milton in " Childe Harold " — 

" The morn is up again, the dewy morn, 
With breath all incense, and with cheek all bloom 
Laughing the clouds away in playful scorn." 



36 In Memoriam 



Whittier changes the image with almost Milton's 
boldness in his " Evening by the Lakeside." 

" The young archer Morn shall break 
His arrows on the mountain pine, 
And golden-sandaled walk the lake." 

So too in the descriptions of flowers, the leading 
poets have run into a realistic word-painting that is 
quite striking in its delineations — 

Thus Milton in " Lycidas " — 

"The rathe primrose, — and pale jessamine, 
The white pink and the pansy freak'd with jet, 
The glowing violet, — 

The musk rose and the well-attired woodbine, 
And daffodillies fill their cups with tears." 

And Thompson sings of the 

" Yellow wall-flowers stained with iron-brown, 
Auriculas enriched 

With shining meal o'er all their velvet leaves. 
Hyacinths of purest virgin white 
Lean bent and blushing inward. 
Laburnum rich 
In streaming gold ; syringa — ivory pure " — 



Dr. CrowelL 37 



And Tennyson in " In Memoriam " sings : 

" Bring orchis, bring the fox -glove spire, 
The little speedwell's darling blue, 
Deep tulips dashed with fiery dew, 
Laburnums, dropping-wells of fire." 

But our own nature poet, Bryant, had already sung 
of 

" Laburnum's string of sunny colored gems, 
Sad hyacinths, and violets dimly sweet, 
And orange blossoms on their dark green stems." 

But "we trace most of this flower-painting back to 
the universal genius, who in " Winter's Tale " says — 

" Daffodils, 
That come before the swallow dares, and take 
The winds of March with beauty : violets dim, 
But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes, 
Or Cytherea's breath." Act iv. Scene iii. 

We might trace this similarity of phraseology inde- 
finitely and show how easily it is assumed by a diver- 
sity of minds, in the apothegm, the proverb, the poet- 
ical expression and in happy flights of oratory. 

How often do we find that some of the brilliant 
flourishes that have given a peculiar character to cer- 



38 In Memoriam 



tain orators and writers are but the reflection of some 
previous writer. 

Readers of Macaulay will recall the famous passage 
in his review of " Ranke's History of the Popes." 

" The Romish Church may still exist in undimin- 
ished vigor, when some traveler from New Zealand 
shall, in the middle of a vast solitude, take his stand 
on a broken arch of London Bridge, to sketch the 
ruins of St. Paul's." 

This passage when it appeared made a great sensa- 
tion in literary circles, and was quoted as a splendid 
stroke of rhetorical prophecy. But ingenious stu- 
dents of letters soon found the same figure used by 
other writers. In " Volney's Ruins " we find a similar 
passage, and Horace Walpole in 1774, in a letter to 
Mason says : — 

" At last some curious traveler from Lima will visit 
England, and give a description of the ruins of St. 
Paul's, like the editions of Palmyra and Baalbec." 

And the youthful and unfortunate Henry Kirk 
White in his poem on " Imri " exclaims — 

" Where now is Britain ! 
Even as the savage sits upon the stone 
That marks where stood her capitols, and towers, 
The bittern booming in the weeds, he shrinks 
From the dismaying solitude." 



Dr. Crowe IL 39 



Shelley had also used the same imagery in his "Dedi- 
cation to Peter Bell" : — 

" When London shall be a habitation of bitterns 
when St. Paul's and Westminster Abbey shall stand, 
shapeless and nameless ruins in the midst of an un- 
peopled marsh." 

And Macaulay's oft- quoted phillipic against the 
Puritans, — 

" They hated bear-baiting, not because it gave pain 
to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spec- 
tators, " is but a repetition of Hume : " Even bear- 
baiting was esteemed heathenish and unchristian ; 
the sport of it, not the inhumanity, gave offence." 

So when Daniel Webster in his speech in Faneuil 
Hall in 1842, made use of the expressive figure, — 
"The sea of upturned faces that I see before me", 
it was supposed to be original with him, but the great 
orator found it in the romance of Rob Roy, Vol. i, 
ch. 20. 

One of the most brilliant metaphors ever used by 
Webster occurs in his remarkable speech on Hamil- 
ton in 1 83 1. " He smote the rock of the national re- 
sources and abundant streams of revenues gushed 
forth. He touched the dead corpse of Public Credit, 
and it sprung upon its feet." Yet an earlier writer, 



40 In Memo riant 



Lord Avommore, had said of Blackstone, " He it 
was that first gave to the law the air of a science. — 
He found it a skeleton and clothed it with life and 
color ; he embraced the cold statue, and by his touch 
it grew into youth, health and beauty." 

Perhaps the great expounder received his inspira- 
tion from this passage, but if he did, we shall hardly 
accuse him of plagiarism. A trite saying of Webster, 
often quoted, is found in a campaign speech in 1848 : 
" I have read their platform, but I see in it nothing 
both new and valuable. What is valuable is not new, 
and what is new is not valuable." It is a classic 
form of expression. — " If I am Sophocles, I am not 
mad ; and if I am mad, I am not Sophocles." 

Another passage of surprising beauty of diction 
occurs in a speech on the American Colonies, deliver- 
ed by Mr. Webster, May 7, 1834. 

" The Colonies raised their flag against a- power, 
to which, for purposes of foreign conquest and sub- 
jugation, Rome, in the height of her glory, is not to 
be compared. — a power which has dotted over the 
surface of the whole globe with her possessions and 
military posts, whose morning drum beat, following 
the sun, and keeping company with the hours, circles 
the earth with one continuous and unbroken strain of 
the martial airs of England." This idea, divested of its 



Dr. Crow ell. 41 



splendid rhetoric had its germ in Capt. John Smith's 
writings when he exclaims : "Why should the brave 
Spanish soldier brag the sun never sets in the Spanish 
dominions, but ever shinest on one part or other we 
have conquered for our king." 

The same expression is used in 1548, by Gage in 
speaking of the conquests of the Dutch ; and again 
by Schiller in his drama of " Don Carlos. " 

" I am called 
The richest monarch of the Christian world — 
The sun in my dominions never sets." 

And Walter Scott, in his Life of Napoleon repeats : 
"The sun never sets on the immense empire of 
Charles V." 

In his last speech delivered in Faneuil Hall a short 
time before his death, Mr. Webster in a little dash of 
humor made use of the following quotation : 

" Solid men of Boston 
Drink no strong potations ; 
Solid men of Boston 
Make no long orations." 

These lines were the subject of much comment as 
to their origin. It was found, however, that Mr. 
Webster took them from an old song written by 



42 In Memoriam 



Charles Morris on " Pitt and Dundee's return to 
London." This song has had many versions, but the 
above quotation is substantially correct. 

Mr. Webster was fond of introducing choice bits of 
literature into his orations and speeches, and his 
familiarity with standard auihors seldom let him trip 
in a quotation. Not so, however, with Mr. Clay. 
The great Kentnckian, with all his brilliant d.ish of 
oratory, was deficient in classical learning and did not 
often venture upon a poetical quotation. Once, how- 
ever, on a great occasion, when he was to speak on a 
famous Bill in the U. S. Senate, he went to Mr. Win- 
throp who was then in the House and said : "Win- 
throp, doesn't Shakespeare say something about a rose 
having another name?" " Oh, yes," said Winthrop, 
" in Romeo and Juliet, the fair Juliet exclaims : 

" What's in a name ? that which we call a rose 
By any other name, would smell as sweet." 

" That's just what I want for my speech tomorrow, 
just write it down for me." Winthrop complied, and 
the next day the Senate chamber was crowded to 
h^ir the great orator. As he proceeded with his 
speech he came to the passage, — " Mr. President this 
bill has been objected to on account of its title. But, 
sir, what's in a name?" This was the supreme 



Dr. CrowelL 



43 



moment for the quotation, but he could not recall it. 
With a graceful flourish of his right hand to the ladies 
in the galleries, he repeated the question, " What's in 
a name? " at the same time fumbling in vain with his 
other hand in his vest pocket to find the fugitive lines. 
With infinite dexterity he wheeled round to the Presi- 
dent and exclaimed, " A rose, Mr. President, find it 
where you will, is still a rose," and dashed on with his 
speech. The reporter who told this anecdote said 
that no man but Mr. Clay w r ould have trifled with 
Shakespeare with such audacity, and he adds, " But I 
would have given a thousand dollars at that moment 
to have put that quotation into the lips of my idol." 

Sometimes an obscure cr forgotten writer is brought 
into notice by some timely quotation from his works 
by a distinguished orator. At the death of Mr. Web- 
ster there was a public meeting called by the citizens 
of Boston to express sympathy and regret and Ed- 
ward Everett pronounced an impromptu eulogy, in 
which he gave an account of the incidents attending 
the last hours of the great statesman. In the course 
of his remarks Mr. Everett quoted with much tender- 
ness and pathos the following lines : 

" His sufferings ended with the day, 
Yet lived he at its close, 



44 In Memoriam 



And breathed the long, long night away, 
In statue-like repose. 

But when the sun in all his state, 

Illumed the eastern skies, 
He passed through Glory's morning gate 

And walked in Paradise." 

These lines, so eloquent and tender and so appro- 
priate to the occasion deeply impressed the audience, 
and their authorship was at once sought out. They 
were written by James Aldrich, whose works were but 
little known • but who came into temporary promi- 
nence by the happy use of his fine stanzas. 

The pathetic poem of William Knox written in the 
early part of this century, commencing : 

" O why should the spirit of mortal be proud ?" 

was greatly admired by Mr. Lincoln, and during the 
dark days of the war he was in the habit of repeating 
portions of it to his intimate friends. So popular did 
this poem become that copies of it were printed 
in various styles, and for a long time the authorship 
was attributed to the good President. The poem, 
although not possessing much literary merit, has 
found its way into most standard collections of Amer- 
ican verse. 



Dr. Crow ell. 45 



Whence come the popular songs and ballads that 
have existed in some form from the earliest period of 
the history of our language? The world goes on 
singing these fugitive ditties expressive of the joys, 
sorrows and emotions of the heart, without much care 
or thought as to their origin, and the author is too 
often, alas, lost in the confusion of hearts or of tongues 
that shaped or modified their growth. How few 
ancient hymns or songs come down to us pure from 
the brain whence they first took their flight. 

How often are our sensibilities shocked in seeing a 
favorite hymn of our childhood marred by changing 
the structure of the verse upon whose rippling 
euphony hung all its early music. How often do we 
hear some mincing ballad singer, who for the sake of 
an artistic shake or trill, or roulade, will dare to trifle 
with words that have become part of our life and 
thought. 

Take for instance Toplady's famous hymn, " Rock 
of Ages," only written about a hundred years ago, yet 
there are more than a dozen different versions of it 
in the various hymnals extant, and the same may be 
said of nearly every standard hymn. The tune makers 
are largely responsible for this, and in this line of 
spoliation, perhaps Lowell Mason has been the great- 
est sinner of them all. 



46 In Memoriam 



A ballad is some event, sentiment or idea put into 
homely verse, and generally sung to music as simple, 
quaint and artless as is the thought or incident of the 
rhyme. The ballad is the suggestion of the age and 
condition in which it is written. 

In the days of border warfare and feudal strife we 
have such rare old ballads as " Chevy Chase," written 
in the fourteenth century, setting forth the bloody 
contest between Percy and Douglas, when the former 
dared to trespass upon the borders of Douglas. 

The ballads of the sea are both numerous and rich 
in simple narrative, one of the best being the " Storm" 
by George A. Stevens, 1 720-1 784, so familiar to 
every old tar, and so happy in the use of sailor 
phrases in the handling of the ropes in a storm. 

Modern steam navigation has taken nearly all the 
poetry out of the sailor's vocabulary, as it has also 
destroyed the mystery and romance of the sea. 
Thackeray, however, has put some of the true poetry 
of the ballad into the steamship, as is shown in his 
humorous description of a white squall on the Medi- 
terranean during his passage in the steamer Iberia on 
those oft troubled waters. 

With the advent of Burns comes the epoch of sen- 
timental song, full of the simple phases of human af- 
fection and passion, and touched with that pathetic 



Dr. CrowelL 47 



tenderness which meets with such universal recogni- 
tion. The songs of Burns are essentially unique ; 
nothing of the kind has ever been written to match 
" Bonny Doon " or " Highland Mary." 

Perhaps no lyric has been more universally admired 
than that beautiful, stirring poem commencing : 

"Scots wha hae wi Wallace bled," 

but it may not generally be known that Burns by the 
advice of some friends was induced to suppress the 
first two stanzas as they stood in his manuscript. It 
is a matter of regret that the poem was not given to 
the world entire, for certainly the poet's genius far 
surpassed the taste of the fastidious critic. It stood 
thus in the original : 

" At Bannockburn the English lay ; 
The Scots they were na far away, 
But waited for the break o' day, 
That glinted in the East. 

But the sun broke through the heath 
And lighted up that field of death 
When Bruce wi' soul-inspiring breath, 
His heralds thus addressed, 

" Scots wha hae wi Wallace bled," etc. 



48 In Memoriam 



Scott's songs partake of the legends of Scotland, 
and ring with the sound of the pibroch and the war- 
cry of the clans, and are noble expressions of that 
wild and savage love of liberty which characterized 
the early days of Scottish chivalry. 

Of a very different character are the sentimental 
songs of Thomas Moore, who was the pet of London 
society a half- century ago, and sung his own songs 
and ballads to the admiring throngs that gathered in 
elegant drawing-rooms to do him homage. 

Moore was a prolific writer, and his songs are dedi- 
cated to every possible emotion of passion, love and 
lackadaisical sentimentality. We could not very well 
dispense with such fine songs as "The Harp that 
once through Tara's Halls," " Oft in the stilly night/* 
"The Last Rose of Summer," "Araby's Daughter," 
or the " Canadian Boat Song." 

It would hardly seem possible that the poet who 
wrote hundreds of songs trashy and silly could 
awaken his harp to strains as lofty as " Sound the 
loud timbrel," or that sweet and tender refrain, 
"Come ye disconsolate, where'er ye languish," or that 
splendid, sacred lyric, 

" Thou art, O God the life and light 
Of all this wondrous world we see," 



Dr. Crowell. 



49 



all of which effusions have found their way into most 
of the standard hymnals. 

Far different are the ringing, glowing lines of 
Campbell, whose splendid lyrics were inspired by his 
love for liberty and hatred for oppression. He lived 
and wrote in the stirring times when Napoleon was 
striking terror among the nations by the mighty power 
of his genius, and his verse is inspired by the heroic 
deeds of England's noblest sons. His sympathies are 
awakened by the failing cause of Poland, and his 
" Pleasures of Hope," glow with the fire of his genius 
in describing the brave courage of Kosciusko, when 

" Hope for a season bade the world farewell, 
And freedom shrieked as Kosciusko fell." 

Campbell may well be styled the greatest lyrical 
writer of his time. What in our language is finer 
than those noble lines, " Ye Mariners of England," 
called forth by the stirring events in the early part of 
the century. 

"The Battle of the Baltic," "Hohenlinden," "The 
Exile of Erin," are all written in the same spirit and 
inspired by the same fiery zeal for liberty and En- 
gland's glory. 

We are indebted to Campbell for those remarkable 
lines which have become household words : 



50 , In Memoriam 



" Tis distance lends enchantment to the view." — 
" Like angels' visits, few and far between," — 
" Coming events cast their shadows before." 

Coleridge, one of the greatest word painters of any 
age has given us in his wonderful " Rime of the An- 
cient Mariner," some of the most striking forms of 
expression in the language — expressions that take 
hold of the popular ear and are quoted through all time. 
Indeed these happy groupings of words give the im- 
mortality to certain writers, whose longer and studied 
poems are forgotten. Few persons read " The Ancient 
Mariner, " but how familiar are the expressions : 

" Red as a rose is she, " 

" We were the first that ever burst 
Into that silent sea." 

" As idle as a painted ship 
Upon a painted ocean," — 

" Water, water everywhere, 
Nor any drop to drink," 

"Alone, alone, all, all alone, 
Alone on a wide, wide sea." 

" O, sleep ! it is a gentle thing, 
Beloved from pule to pole," — 



Dr. CrowelL 5 1 



" A noise like of a hidden brook 
In the leafy month of June, 
That to the sleeping woods all night 
Singeth a quiet tune." — 

" A sadder and a wiser man 
He rose the morrow morn !" 

And some of his lines in the famous " Hymn in the 
Vale of Chamouni," are of surpassing power and 
beauty. 

After the vigorous songs and odes and lyrics of 
Campbell, Scott, Byron and others of like poetic fire 
and zeal, come batches of sentimental love songs 
which some of us used to sing in the early stage of 
our development. Perhaps we wonder now why we 
could do it, but I fear most of us must plead guilty 
of joining with no little unction in such songs of 
Thomas Haynes Bayly as 

"Oh, no, we never mention her," 

"We met — 'twas in a crowd." 

"She wore a wreath of roses 
The night that first we met," 

" Tell me the tales that to me were so dear 
Long, long ago, long ago," 



52 In Memoriam 



" The rose that all are praising,' , 

" Gaily the troubadour touched his guitar," 

and so on to the sweet end. 

But perhaps after all, such effusions serve a benevo- 
lent purpose. They afford to the timid, bashful 
adventurer a safe and convenient form of speech, 
which, though somewhat full of glittering generalities, 
gives glimpses of the lurking passion that masters us 
all. And when a poor fellow has met with a decided 
rebuff, how grateful should he feel towards that happy 
poet who has given him a poem of expression like 
this: 

" Roll on, silver moon, 

Guide the traveller his way, 
While the nightingale's song is in tune, 
But I never, never more 

With my true love will stray 
By the sweet silver light of the moon." 

Although the logic of this ditty is not apparent, it no 
doubt has given comfort to many a disconsolate swain. 
The songs and ballads of our own country are not 
numerous, and but few of them have a national repu- 
tation. The air of Yankee or Nankee Doodle, sung 
in the time of Charles I, as a nursery rhyme to the 



Dr. CrowelL 53 



words, "Lucy Locket lost her pocket," was also re- 
vived in Cromwell's day to the words : 

" Yankee Doodle came to town 
On a Kentish pony, 
He stuck a feather in his cap 
And called it maccaroni,' , 

During the Revolutionary war numerous doggerel 
verses were set to this air, chiefly in derision of 
American soldiers, but the joke was turned, and it 
became one of our national airs. 

One of the best known of the ridiculous songs set 
to this music is the one intended to cast ridicule upon 
Washington and his army, entitled, "John's visit to 
the camp." 

" Old Grimes is dead," is another well known song, 
written by Albert G. Green of Providence, but Mr. 
Green acknowledged that he took it from an old 
ballad. Indeed we find upon an old tombstone in an 
English church-yard the inscription, 

" John Lea is dead, that good old man, 
We ne'er shall see him more, 
He used to wear an old drab coat 
All buttoned down before." 

And in Holliwell's Nursery Rhymes we find : 



54 In Memo7'iam 



Old Abram Brown is dead and gone, 

You'll never see him more ; 
He used to wear a long brown coat 

All buttoned down before. 

Mr. Green's version is : 

•' Old Grimes is dead, that good old man 
We ne'er shall see him more, 
He used to wear a long black coat 
All buttoned down before." 

One of the most popular of our standard odes is 
" Hail Columbia," written in 1798 by Joseph Hopkin- 
son to be sung in a theatre by one Fox, a noted 
vocalist of the day. Party feeling was at that time 
running high, and the boxes of the theatre were run- 
ning low, when Fox went to Hopkinson, who was 
something of a poet, and asked him to write some 
patriotic verses to be sung by him to the tune of the 
"President's March." Mr. Hopkinson complied and 
produced " Hail Columbia," which was announced to 
be sung the next evening. 

The theatre was crowded, the song was sung atnd 
received with raptures ; it was repeated eight times and 
again encored, when at the ninth singing the audience 
arose and joined in the, chorus. It was caught up by 
the boys in the streets, and the home of the author 



Dr. CrowelL 55 



was surrounded by an enthusiastic crowd and " Hail 
Columbia " was sung at midnight by five hundred 
patriotic voices. 

Our other great national ode was written by Francis 
S. Key during the bombardment of Fort McHenry by 
the British in 18 14. Looking out towards the fort on 
the morning of the bombardment, he beheld the stars 
and stripes gleaming in the sunlight, and under the 
inspiration of the scene he wrote the immortal lines. 

To illustrate how time changes the whole tone and 
spirit of national feuds and strife, I recall the scene at 
Gilmore's great Peace Jubilee in Boston, when ten 
thousand voices and instruments swelled the grand 
chorus. It was my good fortune to be present on the 
"English Day," when in the presence of fifteen 
thousand people, Her Majesty's Marine Band ap- 
peared upon the stage. After the enthusiasm of the 
greeting had subsided, this English Band in most in- 
spiring strains, struck up the " Star Spnngled Banner." 
The responsive heart of the audience was quick to 
catch the delicate and magnanimous compliment ; in- 
stantly that vast concourse arose and with the wildest 
expressions of appreciative delight, there went up 
such a shout of kindly welcome as would rejoice the 
heart of the stoutest Englishman. And when the 
national air of England, " God Save the Queen," 



56 In Memoriam 



followed, the applause was equally hearty and spon- 
taneous. 

During the long dark days of our civil war the 
strains of this ode were again heard, and the "Star 
Spangled Banner" as sung by a noble woman who 
has since become a welcome resident of our city, 
gave courage and hope to many faltering hearts. 

Speaking of " God Save the Queen " reminds us 
that this English ode has something of a French 
origin, both in words and music. The original verses 
were sung in France before Louis XIV, when he en- 
tered the Chapel of St. Cyr. The words are said to 
have been written by Madame De Brenon, and the 
music by the famous Sully. Handel, it is said, in a 
visit to Paris, got possession of the music and the 
song, and on his return to England dedicated it to 
King George I, and the "Vive le Roi " of France 
became "God save the Kisg." of England. 

It is now generally conceded, however, that this 
great national ode was written by Henry Carey who 
lived 1663-1743. 

Our favorite national ode, " My Country 'tis of 
Thee," sung to the music of " God Save the Queen," 
was written by Rev. Dr. S. F. Smith in 1832, and first 
sung in public at Park Street Church, in Boston, on 
the occasion of a children's celebration July 4, 1832. 
It was first sung in Haverhill, July 4, 1834. 



Dr. CrowelL 57 



Fresh interest has recently been awakened in the 
history of John Howard Payne from the fact that Mr. 
Corcoran has generously caused the dust of the 
wandering poet to be removed from a foreign soil to 
a final resting-place in his native land. " Home 
Sweet Home " was written by Payne, for the farce of 
" Clara, the Maid of Milan," and set to the beautiful 
Sicilian air that has become so universal. The author 
of this homely song was himself homeless, and died 
among strangers in a foreign land. 

Jenny Lind, the Swedish Nightingale, whose match- 
less warblings a generation ago enchanted the public 
ear, gave to this ballad a new inspiration by the 
charm of her interpretation. She broke away from 
the dirge-like methods of other great singers and 
burst out in a joyous expression of affectionate and 
passionate delight, as if conscious that home was to 
her the supreme thought of her heart. What was the 
secret of this indescribable charm that swayed all 
hearts and made the triumph complete? When I 
listened to the voice of this peerless songstress in 
Music Hall in Philadelphia (1850) she introduced 
this simple song into a programme rich with the 
rarest productions of the masters, and under the 
guidance of Sir Julius Benedict, 



In Memoriam 



In the midst of the first stanza the vast audience 
burst out in a rapturous applause that for a moment 
seemed to disconcert the fair artist. But in the 
second stanza, when she came to the line, 

"The birds singing gaily, that come at my call," 

she made a slight pause, and then broke into a war- 
ble that would have made Philomela hang his head in 
shame. 

Steady old bankers arose to their feet and actually 
shouted ; stately dowagers waved their dainty hand- 
kerchiefs, and verdant medical students — well, it would 
be impossible to describe the extravagance of their be- 
havior, while the face of the singer, radiant with 
emotion, was filled with that gleam of genius which is 
the rare gift of the gods. It was one of the occa- 
sions that mark life into precious epochs. 

Several years ago a celebrated ballad singer by the 
name of Russell used to captivate the public ear by 
his dramatic rendering of popular songs. Among 
others he used to sing Barry Cornwall's stirring lines : 

" The sea, the sea, the open sea, 
The blue, the fresh, the ever free," 

and when he was in Boston he said to Dr. Coates of 
Philadelphia, a popular writer, who was at the Tre- 



Dr. Crow ell. 59 



mont House : " Coates, write me a song to sing to- 
morrow night — something dramatic, something sen- 
sational." 

"But where's your music ?" said Dr. Coates. " O, I 
will write that after I see your poem." Dr. Coates 
retired to his room and, after several hours of frantic 
walking and thinking he sat down and dashed off the 
" Drunkard's Wife," commencing : 

" The night is dark, how dark ! 
No light, no fire, 
Cold on the hearth 

The last faint sparks expire." 

The next morning he showed it to Russell who was 
delighted with its tragic details, and on that night he 
made a great sensation by singing it in his own pecu- 
liar style. Dr. Coates has had the pleasure of seeing 
his stanzas dreadfully mangled. The scene of the poor 
dying wife and mother closed as 

" The babe lay frozen on its mother's breast, 
The clock strikes three." 

but some New York genius added another stanza de- 
scriptive of the drunken husband's return, closing 
with "The clock strikes four," 



6o In Memoriam 



The agony and disgust of Coates at this mutilation 
can only be appreciated by a long-suffering poet. 

Sometimes a writer's early effusions cause him a 
world of trouble, when, in the lapse of years, some rhap- 
sody or apostrophe written in the flush of hero-wor- 
ship, comes back to taunt him with inconsistency and 
bad faith. Of this class is one of Whittier's minor 
poems written in the days of the famous Clay cam- 
paign. 

Whittier was one of the admirers of the gallant 
Harry of the West, when that brilliant statesman first 
appeared before the country as the Whig candidate 
for the presidency, and the youthful poet after the 
defeat of his favorite, gave vent to his patriotic 
devotion in these familiar lines : 

" Not fallen ! No ! as well the tall 
And pillared Alleghany fall ! " 

But when Mr. Clay was again a candidate in the 
famous campaign of 1844, the sentiment of the poet 
had met with a radical change. But his poem had 
not changed, and the friends of Clay made it do 
effective work throughout the land, in spite of the 
protests of Whittier, who stoutly forbade the papers 
to publish the fugitive lines, declaring that in his esti- 
mation Clay had fallen. But this was not the worst 



Dr. Crowe IL 61 



of it. Thomas H. Benton took up the poem, clapped 
his name over it, and made poor Whittier declare that 
Benton was as upright and invincible as " the tall and 
pillared Alleghany." And to make the agony of the 
abolition poet more intense, the Democratic party in 
New York after the defeat of Silas Wright, that im- 
macculate prince of pro-slavery sentiments, put his 
name over the verses, and forced Whittier to assure 
the world that Wright was right side up, and that you 
might as well upset " the pillared Alleghany "as to 
remove that great man from his base of truth and 
justice. It is needless to say that this troublesome 
child is disowned in all the later editions of the 
Quaker poet's works. 

Our best American satirists are Lowell, as seen in 
his famous Biglow Papers, and Holmes, in numerous 
effusions w r ritten for special occasions. But besides 
these well-known and popular poets, we occasionally 
find happy effusions from the pen of less aspiring 
writers, which are often lost to the public. They ap- 
pear in the daily papers or magazines and seldom as- 
sume permanent shape in standard literature. 

Among this class of fugitive verses is the clever 
satire written by J. T. Fields a short time before his 
death, entitled " The Owl Critics, A Lesson to Fault 
Finders." 



62 In Memoriam 



Among the voluminous writings of American poets, 
how large a proportion will go down the ages as 
standard? Judging from the great writers of En- 
gland, our prediction must be limited to a few frag- 
mentary and fugitive effusions. Pope with all his 
splendid diction is now best known by a few apt and 
trite aphorisms. L'Allegro and II Penseroso are more 
familiar than Paradise Lost. The stately verse of 
Young and Pollock is seldom quoted. John Gilpin is 
better known than the Task. Wordsworth's minor 
ballads and sonnets are more popular than the Excur- 
sion. And so Bryant's fame will rest upon a few lines 
of Thanatopsis and that noble stanza : 

" Truth crushed to earth shall rise again 
The eternal years of God are hers ; 
But error wounded writhes with pain 
And dies among her worshippers." 

Longfellow's " Psalm of Life " will doubtless out- 
live " Evangeline," or the " Spanish Student," and, may 
be, Edgar Poe's weird and quaint " Raven " will stand 
the test of time better than either. George P. Mor- 
ris's "Woodman, spare that tree," or Woodworth's "Old 
Oaken Bucket," by their happy, homely mode of ex- 
pression, and their appeal to a universal sentiment, 
will hold their own among the best things that Whit- 



Dr. Crow ell. 63 



tier, Lowell, or Holmes ever wrote, not excepting 
Maud Muller or the Biglow Papers. Or the One 
Hoss Shay. 

Emerson has written some lines evidently destined 
for immortality. 

" The hand that rounded Peter's dome 
And groined the aisles of Christian Rome 
Wrought in a sad sincerity, 
Himself from God he could not free. 
He builded better than he knew, — 
The conscious stone to beauty grew." 

or 

" Earth proudly wears the Parthenon 
As the best gem upon her zone, 
And morning opes in haste her lids 
To gaze upon the pyramids." 

or those remarkable lines in the Hymn sung at the 
completion of Concord Monument : 

" Here once the embattled farmers stood 
And fired the shot heard round the world." 

Such is the glory, variety and fame of literature. 
Some write nobly and well for their own time, and 
others, by a happy inspiration or ingenious turn of 



64 In Memoriam 



words, utter thoughts or phrases that stand the test of 
ages. 

And it is a grim satire on the permanence of a 
standard literature to be obliged to admit that often- 
times a flippant song or a jingling melody by its very 
oddity or grotesqueness, or childish simplicity, will be 
carried down the ages by the good-natured, laughing, 
thoughtless crowd ; while the smooth, refined and 
rippling measures of the sensitive and dainty poet 
have their little day, and pass on into dim forgetful- 
ness. 



SOURCES OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 

From the advent of the Saxons, to the time of Shakespeare. 



The English Language as spoken today by the 
educated masses of English-speaking people consti- 
tutes the simplest, the most powerful and effective 
form of speech in the civilized world. Less musical 
and flowing than the tongues of southern Europe, 
smoother and more intelligible than the nasal and 
guttural utterances of Russia, Germany and Scandi- 
navia, it combines the soft and sturdy elements of 
every spoken language known to the enlightened 
world, enriched and strengthened by the result of 
oriental and classic beauties so profusely scattered 
throughout its literature. 

It is the opinion of the soundest philological 
scholars, that the language, by the aggressive power 
of those who speak it, is destined to become the 



66 In Memoriam 



medium of communication throughout the civilized 
world. So that the English scholar will soon be able 
to make his way through the cities of Europe, and 
western Asia, and northern Africa, without the essen- 
tial aid of any of the languages of Continental 
Europe. 

When we examine the sources of the language, we 
are surprised that, from causes so conflicting and a 
history so romantic and strange, there should result a 
form of speech worthy to be a standard of communi- 
cation for the noblest thought and sentiment of the 
human mind. 

The rude, rough words of the sturdy Saxons, who 
spoke when thoughts were few and easily expressed — 
the more civilizing element introduced by the Nor- 
mans, with their words of French origin and with 
French habits of thought ; the ascendency of the 
Saxon element over the Norman corruption, and the 
triumph of pure English ; the revival of classical learn- 
ing after the restoration with the succeeding effem- 
inacy in habits of thought and speech ; the efforts 
of modern scholars to restore the language to its 
primitive purity and simplicity, ail these forces have 
had their power in moulding and perfecting and mak- 
ing it worthy the respect of scholars of every realm 
and every tongue. Let us examine some of the 



Dr. Crowe 11 . 67 



sources of this result, and trace more minutely the 
character and habits of those early people from whom 
we derive the words that constitute the strength and 
the glory of English Literature. 

In the early part of the Christian Era, there dwelt 
in the northern borders of Germany, a rude and war- 
like people, occupying the region along the coast, 
from the mouth of the Rhine to the peninsular of 
Jutland. In this low, wet, foggy region they dwelt, 
holding absolute sway all along the coast, extending 
their marauding and piratical expeditions into the 
northern part of Gaul and along the coast of England, 
and striking terror to the weak dependants of the 
Roman Empire. These were the Angles and Saxons, 
destined to act such important part in the future 
drama of the most powerful people in the world. 
"Men of huge, white bodies, cool-blocded, with 
fierce, blue eyes, reddish flaxen hair, ravenous 
stomachs, filled with meat and cheese, heated by 
strong drink, prone to drunkenness." * 

Their very occupation inured them to hardship. 
Storm-beaten in wretched boats of hide, amid the 
hardships and dangers of a sea-faring life, they 
courted misfortune and scorned danger. They were 
pirates by intuition ; " Of all kinds of hunts the man- 

*Taine. 



68 In Memoriam 



hunt is the most profitable and the most noble ; " 
they left the care of the lands and flocks to the women 
and slaves ; they dashed to sea in their two-sailed 
barks, landed anywhere, killed everything, and, having 
sacrificed the tithe of their prisoners in honor of their 
gods, they left behind them the red light of their 
burning and went on for further pillage. " Lord, de- 
liver us from the fury of the Jutes," says a certain 
history of the time. Their sea-kings, who had never 
slept under the smoky rafters of a roof, who had 
never drained an ale-horn by the hearth of an inhab- 
ited dwelling, laughed at wind and storms, and sang : 
"The blast of the tempest aids our oars, the bel- 
lowing of heaven, the howling of the thunder, hurt us 
not ; the hurricane is our servant and drives us 
whither we wish to go." "We smote with our 
swords," says a song attributed to Ragnar Lodbrog. 
" To me it was a joy like having my bright bride with 
me on my couch." The daughter of the Danish Jarl, 
seeing Egil taking his seat near her, reproached him 
thus : " Why sittest thou here ? You have seldom 
provided the wolves with hot meat, and never, during 
the autumn, have you seen a raven croaking over the 
carnage." 

These are the people who, in the early part of the 
fifth century, were invited by the Britons to come 



Dr. CrowelL 69 



among them for their protection and assistance ; for 
the Roman Empire, disturbed and distracted by dif- 
ficulties at home, and the disastrous campaigns in the 
north of Europe, withdrew entirely from the island, 
leaving the poor helpless Britons to the mercy of 
numberless barbarous tribes, who attacked them on 
every side. And they came, bringing with them their 
warlike propensities, their brutal habits, drinking and 
gluttony, and their indomitable bravery. They bring 
their architecture, strong, massive and impressive, in- 
teresting relics of which may still be found in the 
crypts and cloisters which the Normans suffered to 
remain in their work of destruction, and upon which 
they built their own cathedrals. They bring also 
their rude songs and bold legends, and wild tales of 
love, and strange romance. They bring their litera- 
ture, such as it was, simple, strong, full of rough fig- 
ures borrowed from the sea and the carnage. Courage 
certainly they possessed, and the rude honor that 
comes from the fair fight. War is at every door, but 
warlike victors are behind every door. One thing is 
to be noticed in these rough men — their truth to 
their plighted vows. This appears in their laws, and 
breathes forth in their poetry. 

This kept society rude as it was healthful. We find 
women associating with the men at their feasts, sober 



70 I?i Me mo Ham 



and respected. She speaks, and they listen to her ; 
no need of concealing or enslaving her. She is a 
person, not a thing. She can inherit, possess, be- 
queath, appear at courts of justice, in county assem- 
blies, in the great congress of the elders. Law and 
tradition maintain her integrity as if she were a man 
and side by side with the man. 

In " Alfred" there is a portrait of the wife which for 
purity and truth equals anything that modern refine- 
ment can devise. 

" Thy wife now lives for thee, for thee alone. She 
has enough of all kinds of wealth for the present life, 
but she scorns them all for thy sake alone. She has 
forsaken them all, because she had not thee with 
them. Thy absence makes her think that all she pos- 
sesses is naught." 

The religious legendry of this rude people was 
in common with that of the Swedes, Lapps, Ice- 
landers and other tribes and people inhabiting the 
northern regions of Europe. They had deities pre- 
siding over every realm of thought and action, and 
this rude polytheism was exceedingly picturesque and 
ingenious. An old Icelandic legend thus accounts 
for the creation, in poetic phrase which is a curious 
specimen, of the " development theory" as under- 
stood by those simple people centuries ago. u In the 



Dr. Crowell. 7 1 



beginning there were two worlds, Niflheim, the freez- 
ing, and Muspell, the burning. From the falling snow- 
flakes was born the giant Ymir. There was, in times 
of old, where Ymir dwelt, nor sand, nor sea, nor gelid 
waves \ earth existed not, nor heaven above \ 'twas a 
chaotic chasm, and grass nowhere. There was but 
Ymir, the horrible frozen ocean, with his children, 
sprung from his feet and armpits \ then their shape- 
less progeny, terrors of the abyss, barren mountain, 
whirlwinds of the north, and other horrid beings, 
enemies of the sun and life. Then the cow Audhum- 
bla born also of melting snow, brings to light, whilst 
licking the hoar-frost from the rocks, a man Bur, 
whose grandsons kill the giant Ymir ; from his flesh 
the earth was formed, and from his bones the hills ; 
the heaven from the skull of the ice-cold giant and 
from his blood the sea ; but of his brain the heavy 
clouds are all created. Then arose war between the 
monsters of winter and the luminous fertile gods, 
Odin the founder, Baldur, the mild and benevolent, 
Thor the summer thunder, who purifies the air, and 
nourishes the earth with showers. Long fought the 
gods against the frozen Jotuns, against the dark, 
bestial powers — the wolf Fenrir, the great Serpent 
whom they drown in the sea, the treacherous Loki 
whom they bind to the rocks, beneath a viper whose 
venom drops continually in his face." 



72 In Memoriam 



All the legends are redolent of warfare between 
these rude deities, the strong overcoming the weak, 
and by a law of natural selection, a higher and 
stronger power ruling over the conquered. 

Here is one of these legends and we see how in 
their Epic, the sublime springs up amid the horrible. 
In strange contrast to the bloody and disgusting 
scenes depicted, Sigurd plunges his sword into the 
dragon Fofnis, and Fofnis asks as he dies, " Who art 
thou ? and who is thy father, and what thy kin that 
thou art so hardy as to bear weapons against me?" 
" A hardy heart urged me on thereto, and a strong 
hand, and this sharp sword, seldom hath a hardy eld 
a faint-hearted youth." After this triumphant eagle's 
cry, Sigurd cuts his heart, and his brother drinks 
blood from the wound, and falls asleep. Sigurd, who 
is roasting the heart, raises his fingers thoughtlessly to 
his lips ; forthwith he understands the language of 
the birds. The eagles scream above him in the 
branches, and warn him to mistrust his brother. Sig- 
urd cuts off his brother's head, eats of Fofnis' heart, 
and drinks his brother's blood. 

Thus their poetry grew, among this carnage and 
murder. The songs of love and marriage are all in 
the same lofty strain of savage softness, and bloody 
romance. An untamed blooming maiden, disap- 



Dr. Crow ell 73 



pointed in her love for Sigurd, thus bemoans her fate : 
" Sigurd must be mine ; I must die or that blooming 
youth clasp in my arms." But seeing him married to 
another she brings about his murder, for which crime 
she is to be burned to death. She then puts on her 
corselet and meets her fate in a truly graceful and 
poetic fashion. " Let there be raised a pile so 
spacious, that for us all like room may be. 

Let them burn Sigurd on the one side of me, and 
on the other side my household slaves, with collars 
splendid, two at our heads, and two hawks. 

Let also lie between us both the keen edged sword, 
as when we both one couch ascended ; also fat female 
thralls, eight male slaves of gentle birth, fostered with 
me." 

The only poem that we retain entire of this heroic, 
savage age is that of Beowulf, filled with stories of the 
thanes and the kings, in all the fantastic imagery of 
wild and drinking orgies. As in the Iliad and the 
Odyssey, we learn from this poem the manners and 
the sentiments of the people. Beowulf is a hero, a 
knight-errant before the days of chivalry. He has 
rode upon the sea, his naked sword hard in his hand, 
amidst the fierce waves and coldest of storms, and the 
winds of winter hurtled over the waves of the deep ; 
the sea-monsters, the many-colored foes drew him to 



74 



In Memoriam 



the bottom of the sea, and held him fast in their grip. 
But he reached the wretches with his point, and with 
his war-bill. The mighty sea-beast received the war- 
rush through his hands, and he slew nine sea-mon- 
sters. This hero goes through a great variety of fan- 
tastic feats on sea and land, rescues fair ladies from 
the jaws of dragons, spears the nobles in lordly halls 
when the ale was spilled, grappled savage sea women 
who hold him by the throat, and carried the heads of 
grim monsters in triumph to the king. 

Of the lay-poetry of the time we have but a few 
fragments, one of which I quote from Turner's His- 
tory of the Anglo Saxons : 

" The song on Athelstan's victory at Brunonburgh. 
Here Athelstan, king of earth, the lord, the giver of 
the bracelets of the nobles, and brother, also, Ed- 
mund the Aethling, the Elder, a lasting glory won by 
slaughter in battle with the edges of swords at Brunon- 
burgh. The wall of shields cleaved, they hewed the 
noble banners — pursuing they destroyed the Scottish 
people, and the ship-fleet. The field was colored 
with the warriors' blood. After that, the sun on high, 
the greatest star, glided over the earth, God's candle 
bright ! till the noble creature hastened to her setting. 
There lay soldiers, many with darts struck down, 
northern men over their shoulders shot, the screamers 



Dr. Crowe IL 75 



of war they left behind, the raven to enjoy, the dis- 
mal kite, and the black raven with horned beak, and 
the hoarse toad, the eagle afterward to feast on 
the white flesh, the greedy battle-hawk, and the 
grey beast, the wolf of the woods." Here we see the 
peculiar imagery of the style of poetry. It is not a 
bald dry description — each event is set forth with a 
pomp and a coloring of its own. Short and frag- 
mentary, their sentences sparkle with the brilliancy of 
oriental splendor divested of its smoothness and gor- 
geous setting. Thus, in their speech the sea is a 
"chalice of waves," arrows, "the serpent of Hel, spat 
from lips of horn ;" ships are the great steeds ; the 
helmet is the " castle of the head." There is no at- 
tempt at regularity or artifices. The mind of the 
poet springs from one extreme to another with a 
bound, without giving a reason, or attempting an ex- 
planation. There is none of the copious develop- 
ment, as found in the poetry of Homer, where all is 
dressed in the flowing lines of Grecian beauty, sym- 
metrical as the outlines of the female figure, in the 
delicate drapery which covers but not conceals the 
beauty. The chief care of the Saxon poet is to 
abridge his thought in a kind of mutilated cry. The 
internal impression not knowing how to unfold itself, 
becomes condensed, and seeks its utterance in spite 



j 6 In Memoriam 



of all order, and flowing beauty, bold, grand, simple, 
rough, all mixed in the strange confusion of power 
and weakness \ this is the poetry of this strong, idola- 
trous race, when the modifying element of Christianity 
was introduced among them. This was brought about 
in the romantic manner so common in the great 
events of history, and according to Hume was on 
this wise : In the early part of the sixth century, 
Ethel bert king of Kent, formed an alliance of mar- 
riage with the daughter of the king of France. But 
before the consummation of the marriage, it was stip- 
ulated that she should carry the forms and privileges 
of her religion with her into Briton, a concession 
which the idolatrous Saxons were willing to make. 
She accordingly introduced a French Bishop into the 
court of Canterbury and wishing to make her relig- 
ion popular she soon won the respect of the Saxons 
by her assiduous devotion, and by her pure and sim- 
ple life. She used every means in her power to win 
over her husband to her faith. And so through the 
agency of the pious Augustine we find Roman mis- 
sionaries, bearing a silver cross and picture of Christ 
in solemn procession, chanting a litany. The Saxons 
were wise enough to see the superior power and man- 
ners of the Christian people, and charmed by the 
lofty pomp of the ritual of Rome, and won by the 



Dr. Crow ell. 77 



wise measures adopted by Augustine and amazed by 
his miraculous pretentions, they soon embraced a 
religion which promised so much for the future great- 
ness and safety. The old gods were removed from 
the altars by order of the high priest, and by his side 
a chief arose and thus the poetic phrase spoke to the 
people in presence of the King. 
"You remember, O King, that which sometimes 
happens of a winter, when you are seated at table 
with your earls and thralls. Your fire is lighted, and 
your hall is warmed, and without is hail, and rain, and 
snow. Then comes a swallow, flying across the hall ; 
he enters by one door, and leaves by the other. The 
brief moment while he is within is pleasant to him ; 
he feels not rain nor cheerless weather, but the 
moment is brief — the bird flies away in the twinkling 
of an eye, and he passes from winter to winter. Such, 
methinks, is the life of man on earth, compared with 
the uncertain time beyond. It appears for a time, 
but what is the time which comes after? — the time 
which was before ? We know not. If then, this new 
doctrine may teach us somewhat of greater certainty, 
it were well that we should regard it." 

These utter barbarians received Christianity with 
an eagernesss unknown to the pagan nations of the 
south. Their ideas of the sublime find full sweep in 



78 In Memoriam 



the august majesty of God, the great, mysterious, 
grand power that keeps the universe in motion — that 
punished the wicked, and rewarded the good and 
brave — that spoke through prophets and seers, and 
the noble words of the Bible. Their simple manners, 
their grandeur and severity exalt them in their ideas 
of Deity, and in this respect they rise almost to the 
level of the old Hebrew bards. They have no theo- 
ries — no system of theology, but their expressions are 
of praise, and pious adoration. Caedmon, their old poet, 
an ignorant man, received his inspiration while keep- 
ing night watch in the stable. On falling asleep, a 
stranger came to him and asked him to sing and 
these words came into his head : 

" Now we ought to praise the Lord of heaven, the 
power of the Creator, and His skill, the deeds of the 
father of glory ; how He, being eternal God, is the 
author of all marvels ; who, almighty guardian of the 
human soul, created first for the sons of men, the 
heavens as the roof of their dwelling, and then the 
earth." Remembering these words when he awoke, 
he came to town and repeated them to the Abbess 
Hilda, whereupon he was made monk. There in his 
monastic solitude he listened to the stories of Holy 
Writ, " ruminating them over like a pure animal, he 
turned them into sweet verse," and so we have poetic 



Dr. CrowelL 79 



pictures of the loss of Pharaoh's horse in the Red 
Sea, of the destruction of the world by flood, of 
Judith and Holofernes, and all the stern and vivid 
characters of the old scriptures, in the bold, ringing 
strains of their rude verse. The old heathen deities 
are clad in the garb of the new religion. Their 
Scandinavian monsters are now descended from Cain, 
and are the giants drowned by the flood. Here is the 
ancient Nastrand, a " dwelling, deadly cold, full of 
bloody eagles and pale adders ; " and the " Dies Irae " 
resembles the final destruction of the Edda, that 
" twilight of the gods " which will end in a victorious 
regeneration, and everlasting joy under the fair sun. 
Thus they receive the new religion, and thus their 
culture, their manners and literature become modi- 
fied and developed, as far as possible, until the intro- 
duction of a new element. Under this culture the 
good Alfred became the wisest and the most learned 
and pious prince of his time. Under this rude civiliza- 
tion was developed a strength, a grandeur, a simple 
power, that the tremendous events that succeeded 
could not wipe out ; they could only retard a growth 
that in a few centuries would spring up again and 
bear fruit for the ages yet to come. 

This new element came in the form of a great in- 
vasion after an unsuccessful attempt to retard its 
triumphant advance. 



8o In Memoriam 



In the middle of the Eleventh Century, the victori- 
ous Normans, under William the Conqueror, enter 
English territory, carrying terror and subjugation on 
their triumphant march through the country. In vain 
had the sturdy Saxons resisted their force. Their 
superior learning, their brilliant successes, and higher 
civilization rendered them too formidable for the 
heavy blows of the Saxon arms, and they find fol- 
lowers in every conquered village to swell the number 
of their invading host. These people, though Nor- 
man by name, were largely made up of adventurers 
from every direction far and near, from Maine and 
Anjou, from Poitou and Brittany, from Ile-de-France 
and Flanders, from Aquitaine and Burgundy, so that 
the expedition was in reality French in its composi- 
tion. They bring their French manners, and their 
French speech and literature with them, and the 
rough and barbarous Anglo-Saxon tongue becomes 
despised and degraded. The Normans would not 
borrow any custom from such boors, they despised 
them as coarse and stupid, and they endeavored to 
purge the language from all Saxon alloy, and make it 
purely French. So fearful were they that the speech 
of their children would be corrupted with the rude 
jargon, that the nobles in the reign of Henry II. sent 
their sons to France to preserve them from barbarism. 



Dr. Crowe II. 81 



"For two hundred years," says an old writer, " chil- 
dren at school against the usage of all other nations, 
were compelled to leave their own language and to 
construe their lessons in French." The statutes of 
the universities compelled the students to converse 
either in French or Latin. Of course the poetry is 
French. The Norman brought his minstrel with him, 
among whom was Taillefer who sung the song of 
Roland at the Battle of Hastings. All the legends 
are now rendered in the new language, and poor, de- 
spised English is only spoken by the dwellers of the 
forest, the swineherds, peasants and lowest orders. 
The poets of the time were required to depict in 
their poems of chivalry, the manners and habits 
brought over from France. Life was now a pageant 
— a brilliant kind of fete ; and we find the poetry full 
of descriptions of the routes, the processions, and 
the victorious orgies of the people. "Thus, when 
Henry II. went abroad he took with him an immense 
number of knights, foot-soldiers, baggage-wagons, 
tents, war-horses, comedians, courtesans, cooks, con- 
fectioners, posture monkey-dancers, barbers, go-be- 
tweens, hangers-on. In the morning when they start, 
the assemblage begins to shout, sing, hustle each 
other, making racket and rout as if ' hell were let 
loose.' William Longchamps, even in time of peace, 



In Memo7'iam 



would not travel without a thousand horses by way of 
escort. When Archbishop Becket came to France, 
he entered town with two hundred knights, a number 
of barons and nobles, and an army of servants, all 
richly armed and equipped ; he himself being pro- 
vided with four and twenty suits. Two hundred and 
fifty children walked in front, singing national songs, 
then dogs, then carriages, then a dozen war-horses, 
each ridden by an ape and a man, then equerries with 
shields and horses, then falconers, domestics, knights, 
priests, and lastly, as a fitting finale of this motley 
procession, the noble archbishop himself, in all the 
dignity of his sacred office." The Normans borrowed 
from the Saxons many of their habits, in spite of 
their opposition to their language, and none more 
willingly than their habits of excess in eating and 
drinking. Thus, at the marriage of Richard Plan- 
tagenet, Earl of Cornwall, they provided thirty thou- 
sand dishes. At the installation of George Nevill, 
Archbishop of York, the brother of Guy of Warwick, 
the following bill of fare was diligently provided : 

104 oxen; 6 wild bulls; 1000 sheep; 304 calves; 
2000 swine; 500 stags, bucks and does; 204 kids; 
22,802 wild or tame fowls; 300 quarters of corn; 300 
tuns of ale ; 100 tuns of wine ; a pipe of hypocras ; 12 
porpoises and seals. 



Dr. Crow ell. 83 



With this Saxon gluttony the Normans retained and 
cultivated their love for display and frivolous show. 
Their life was a succession of tourneys, spent in the 
open air, and in the sunlight, with show of caval- 
cades and arms in true French fashion. When the 
King of Scots came to London with his hundred 
knights at the coronation of King Edward I. they all 
dismounted, and made over their horses with their 
splendid caparisons to the people, as did also five 
English lords, emulating their example. War was a 
pastime. Edward III. in one of his expeditions 
against the King of France took with him thirty 
falconers, and made his campaign, hunting and fight- 
ing alternately as suited his fancy. This same mon- 
arch built at Windsor a round hall and a round table 
and in one of his tourneys sixty ladies seated on pal- 
freys led as in a fairy tale each her knight by a 
golden chain. 

And these marvels and adventures are the themes 
of the narrator and the poet, and enter into all their . 
descriptions of the events of the times. All the 
manners and the literature seem full of startling 
events, and scenes of merriment, and deeds of studied 
barbarism. Noble and gallant, many too often con- 
cealed a vile, coarse nature, and a brutal passion. 
" Richard Coeur de Lion," says Warton, " is the best 



84 In Memcriam 



king ever mentioned in song." But who ever reck- 
oned up his murders and his butcheries? 

It was not until the wise reign of Edward III. in 
the Fourteenth Century, that the use of the Norman 
tongue in the courts and in legal enactments was pro- 
hibited, and after the monarchs' expeditions against 
France every effort was made by his court to forget 
their Norman extraction altogether. The old and 
despised English, modified and changed by its strange 
alliance, now came again into use, and the first paper 
in English was printed in 1386, during the reign of 
Richard II. Commerce was extended to the Baltic 
and the Mediterranean seas, and wise laws were en- 
acted to check the extravagance and the gluttony of 
the people. 

Amid this transition state, a poet arose, at once 
learned and great in all requisites that constitute 
genius. He is the first great poet of the new tongue 
as restored after the downfall of the French and Latin 
tongues as mediums among the learned and the noble, 
Geoffrey Chaucer. His works form the standard 
poetry of this period and embrace a wide range of 
romance and fanciful detail, written in simple and 
strong verse, with a charming naturalness of narra- 
tion, in striking contrast with the trifling chatter of 
the previous age. He is termed the precursor of the 



Dr. Crow ell. 85 



Reformation, and his principal works are the trans- 
lation of the " Romance of the Rose," " Legende of 
Good Women," and " Canterbury Tales." 

These Tales embrace a series of charming pictures, 
Each portrayed the actor himself, thirty distinct fig- 
ures of every rank, condition and sex, with the 
figures, the turns of speech, the habits and anteced- 
ents, each maintaining his character by his talk and 
actions — the germ of the domestic novel as written 
today. The portrait of the Franklin, the Miller, the 
mendicant Friar, and the Merchant are masterpieces 
of word-painting, and set forth in vivid colors the 
characteristics of each. In this poem Chaucer ranks 
with the great writers of Elizabeth's time, although a 
century and a half before them. Thus Tennyson in 
his " Dream of Fair Women " sings : 

" Dan Chaucer, the first warbler, whose sweet breath 
Preluded those melodious bursts that fill 
The spacious times of great Elizabeth 
With sounds that echo still." 

Although the " moral Gower " was contemporary 
with Chaucer, yet his great rival far outshines him in 
the power of his genius, and the extent of his works. 
The style of Gower was dull and drawn out to a 
tedious length, over a trifle about a sweet smile, or 



86 In Memoriam 



beautiful eyes ; although one of the most learned of 
his time, counting a knowledge of the classics as learn- 
ing, he supposed that Latin was invented by the old 
prophetess Carmens, that the grammarians, Aristar- 
chus, Donatus and Didymus, regulated its syntax, 
pronunciation and prosody; and enriched by tradi- 
tions from the Arabic, Chaldean, and Greek ; at last 
after much labor of celebrated writers, it attained its 
highest perfection in Ovid, the poet of love. He 
discovers that Ulysses learned rhetoric from Cicero, 
magic from Zoroaster, astronomy from Ptolemy, and 
philosophy from Plato. Such is the moral Gower, the 
author of " Confessio Amantis " — a dialogue between 
a lover and his confessor — a poem that dealt in 
everything but good morals, according to the stand- 
ard of the present day. 

The English tongue had now asserted itself, and 
the best scholars in the realm busied themselves in 
turning Latin and French into English. Better man- 
ners and wiser laws were introduced, and even before 
the Reformation entered England, the people began 
to clamor for a wider diffusion of knowledge and of 
the principles of Christian liberty. The Bible had 
been translated into English by WyclirT, and the cruelty 
and wicked intolerance of the ecclesiastics were mak- 
ing way for the great change that had already begun 



Dr. Crowe II. 87 



in Germany, so that, although the Reformation 
entered England apparently by accident, yet it was 
in reality but the result of those mighty causes that 
for centuries had been at work silently among the 
people. There was a moral force in this great event 
far greater and more effectual than the intrigues of 
Henry, or the diplomacy of his court. 

A change is at once perceived in the manners of 
the people. As in Germany, so in England, improve- 
ments for the convenience and comfort, and the sub- 
stantial benefit of the realm were introduced. In 
1534 Henry VIII. began paving the streets of London. 
Substantial houses of brick and stone were erected, 
in place of the old wooden structures covered with 
mortar, and thatched with straw. Glass was em- 
ployed for windows, and bare walls were covered with 
tapestry. People began to consider the luxury of 
being warm, and chimneys were built and stoves in- 
troduced. The taste for dress and scenic display was 
scrupulously cultivated, and in Elizabeth's time it 
arose to almost gross extravagance, Her Majesty 
setting the example. The men rustle in silk and 
sparkle in gold and diamonds, doublets of scarlet 
satin, and cloaks of ermine costing a thousand ducats ■ 
velvet shoes, embroidered with gold and silver, and 
covered with rosettes and ribbons ; boots with falling 



In Me m or i am 



tops, from whence hung a cloud of lace, embroidered 
with figures of birds, animals and flowers in silver, gold 
or precious stones. The ladies wore monstrous ruffs ; 
they puffed out their dresses and adorned them with 
rich devices of gold lace and jewels. Everything 
was for effect and picturesque display. Beautiful 
forms were cultivated, and the arts grew and flourished. 
In Henry VIII. 's time England had but one ship of 
war, but Elizabeth sent out one hundred and fifty 
against the Armada. In 1553 was founded a com- 
pany to trade with Russia, in 1578 Drake sailed 
around the world, in 1600 the East India Company 
was formed. The material world was moving, and 
the great world of thought did not lag behind. The 
succession of men of genius, from the time of Henry 
to the advent of the Bard of Avon, is not more won- 
derful for its brilliancy than for its numbers. We 
might spend the hour in bare .mentioning of the illus- 
trious names that adorn the literature of this golden 
period. 

The crowding of events, the astonishing succession 
of facts, had furnished material, and prose began to 
establish itself. And so we find Sidney, Wilson and 
Puttenham expounding the rules of style ; Speed, 
Raleigh, Stowe, Daniels, Thomas More, and Lord 
Herbert found history ; Camden, Spelman, Usher and 



Dr. Crow ell. 89 



Selden establish scholarship ; Hooker, Taylor, Alger- 
non Sydney study religion, society, church and state. 
And resplendent amid this array of genius, stands 
Francis Bacon, one of the brightest lights of any age 
or time. There is nothing in English prose superior 
to his diction. He penetrated every realm of thought, 
and his genius is equally apparent in philosophy, 
metaphysics, and scientific research. His " Novum 
Organum " treats of physical science with a freshness 
and power that command the attention and the study 
of scientists in this our day, when physics form so 
large a part of the researches of men of thought and 
profound learning. This work has been termed " a 
string of aphorisms" — a collection of scientific de- 
crees, as from one who foresees the future, and reveals 
the truth. The power of his teachings in scientific 
and moral ethics consisted in their practical common 
sense. He did not revel in abstractions merely. 
Every especial science with him was an implement 
with which to work out some practical result. With 
him knowledge in the abstract is useless — it must be 
made to subserve some noble purpose. Pure mathe- 
matics must not be studied simply for the pleasure 
they afford the abstruse scholar, but he enjoins upon 
the mathematicians to apply their deductions to 
mechanics and the industrial arts, and make them 



9 o 



In Memoriam 



subservient to the dignity of material prosperity. He 
enjoins upon moralists not to study mind in a specu- 
lative way, but with a view to diminish or cure vice 
to correct social evils. Science is good for nothing 
in his view unless it can be applied to the furtherance 
of that improvement which exalts and benefits the 
race, " to the effecting of all things possible." The 
quality of Bacon's inventive genius has been likened 
in its universal adaptation, to that of Shakespeare with 
whom he was contemporary. Some of his admirers 
have gone so far as to attribute to him the great 
dramas of the immortal Bard. Without considering 
the merit of such a claim, it is sufficient that the 
works of Lord Bacon place him in the highest rank 
of genius without robbing Shakespeare of the laurels 
that for ages have been accredited to him. 

We have only time to consider briefly, one other 
phase of the literature of this, the most brilliant 
period that England has ever seen, the Drama. 
Dramatic poetry arose and attained perfection 
through the habits of the people. They demanded 
scenic representations, open-air operas and mythologi- 
cal representations. Royalty is entertained in this 
way. Wolsey set the example in his gorgeous recep- 
tions, which read like oriental fairy tales. Elizabeth 
and James kept up a constant succession of dramatic 



Dr. Crowell. 



9i 



and spectacular representations, before which the 
modern drama sinks into insignificance. 

It would demand the pencil of a Rubens to por- 
tray the rich colorings of the costumes used by the 
lords and ladies at the masques played by the queen 
and chief ladies and nobles in the time of James I. 
Ben Jonson thus describes the " Masque of Hymen," 
which reads like a fairy tale : 

" The lords were attired in the form of antique 
Greek statues. On their heads they wore the Per- 
sian crowns that were made of gold-plate turned out- 
ward, and wreathed about with a carnation and silver 
net-lawn. Their bodies were of carnation cloth of 
silver, girt under the breast with a broad belt of cloth 
of gold, fastened with jewels. The mantles were of 
colored silks — the first sky color, the second pearl 
color, the third flame color, the fourth tawny. The 
attire of the ladies was of white cloth of silver, 
adorned with Juno's birds and fruits. A loose under- 
garment, full gathered, of carnation striped with 
silver, and parted with a golden zone ; their hair care- 
lessly bound under the circle of a rare, rich coronet, 
adorned with all varieties of choice jewels from the 
top of which flowed a transparent veil down to the 
ground." 

Can we wonder that in an age when the scenic and 
picturesque enter so largely into the recreations of 



9 2 



In Memoriam 



life, that the theatre should arise, and that the 
dramatic art should be elaborated by the genius of 
Beaumont, Fletcher, Ben Jonson, and find its highest 
glory and triumph in the matchless dramas of Shakes- 
peare ; what was crude and grotesque and barbarous 
became developed into fine art, by the genius of this 
great light of this culminating period of English liter- 
ature. Can we wonder that all classes in this scenic 
and dramatic age, 

" Flocked to the well-trod stage anon, 
If Jonson's learned stock be on, 
Or sweetest Shakespeare, Fancy's child, 
Warble his native wood-notes wild." 

— V Allegro. 

It were arrogance to attempt even a brief analysis 
of the genius and works of Shakespeare. The literary 
world is full of learned books, illustrative, explanatory, 
philosophical, and philological. You can count by 
hundreds the different renderings given to some of 
his obscure passages — you can read until you are 
bewildered, the visionary theories of self-styled 
Shakesperian scholars, you may read the annotations, 
and the glossaries and the stormy discussions of all 
his champions, from Ben Jonson down to George 
Washington Moon — you may, with Judge Holmes, 



Dr. Crowe //. 93 



deny his identity and attribute his plays to the genius 
of Bacon — you may say that it is impossible that a 
stock actor should know the inner life of courts, and 
the secrets of royalty itself, and out of this chaos of 
words and of opinions the universal Genius rises sub- 
lime above all his interpreters, his strong Anglo-Saxon 
words ringing out their rustic music and setting forth 
as no other man has set forth, the subtlest workings 
of the human mind and heart. By his magic pen, 
the Anglo-Saxon tongue out of the strange history 
through which it has passed, out of the base corrup- 
tion to which it has been subjected, marched boldly 
into the front rank of spoken language, and is still 
awaiting a nobler destiny as a standard of communi- 
cation throughout the world. 



Addresses. 



ADDRESS DELIVERED 

- BEFORE THE 

MASSACHUSETTS MEDICAL SOCIETY 
IN BOSTON. 



Mr. President and Fellows 

OF THE MASSACHUSETTS MEDICAL SOCIETY : 

We live in an age remarkable for successful indus- 
try in every department of human skill and enterprise. 
Each day adds to the stock of man's inventive 
faculty in the curious mechanisms for the quicker and 
easier accomplishment of labor, and the splendid 
results are seen in every town and hamlet in the land. 
Material prosperity, as one of the elements of our 
civilization, is also shown in the colossal fortunes 
amassed in our great cities, and in the monuments of 
skillful labor that adorn our streets, and stretch from 
sea to sea in a net-work of iron bands. 

We hear the almost boastful cry of the successful 
men, of vast financial achievements, and the lips of 



98 In Memoriam 



praise do swift homage to those giants who control 
great enterprises and hold the stock market in the 
palm of the hand. 

Amid the devotion paid to the energy and the force 
that move this mighty machinery of business ; amid 
all our admiration for the wealth that builds cities, 
founds schools, endows hospitals, and contributes to 
the thousand charities that appeal to our humanity, 
let us inquire into another phase of a nation's great- 
ness, — the intellectual elements that shape the 
thought, and give direction to those movements 
without which material prosperity would work its own 
decay. 

The present age is quite as remarkable for scientific 
investigation and philosophic research, for acute analy- 
sis and profound questioning, as for any material suc- 
cess and splendor. Against the achievements of the 
Rothschilds and the Vanderbilts, we place the 
Pasteurs, the Darwins, the Spencers and the Bains. 
Philosophy, Science and Philology are also the pro- 
ducts of our time, and stand side by side, and quietly 
but firmly hold their own, with the more pretentious 
forms of success that mark the industry of man. 

The exalted position of the medical profession to- 
day is largely due to the patient investigations of the 
scientist in the laboratory and with the microscope. 



Dr. Crowe IL 99 



While the great world has pursued its noisy way, the 
scholar has been busy in the recluse of his inner 
sanctuary,* solving those problems, and unfolding 
those subtle theories that challenge our respect and 
admiration. Recent contributions to medical science 
form an epoch in our history. Who can estimate the 
value of that treasure-house, the chemical laboratory? 
What wonders in pathological analysis are daily un- 
folded by the microscope ! How, by the invention 
and use of the most delicate instruments can we 
detect the faintest indication of incipient disease ! 
How, by minute dissection and a thorough under- 
standing of the adaptation and relations of bone and 
muscle, fibre and tissue, some of the recent triumphs 
in operative surgery have been obtained ! How 
broad and generous have become the modes of 
thought that give shape to our literature, and place 
our profession among the foremost of the learned 
systems of the world ! 

This is seen in the sharpness with which the inves- 
tigations, and theories, and hypotheses of scientists 
are challenged by their peers. No sooner does 
Robert Koch startle and delight the medical world 

* " The laboratory is the forecourt of the Temple of Philoso- 
phy; and whoso has not offered sacrifices and undergone purifi- 
cation there has little chance of admission into the sanctuary." 
— Huxley — Life of Hume. 



LofC. 



ioo In Memoriam 



by his " Etiology of Tuberculosis,"* showing the 
result of a long series of microscopical experiments, 
than a score of enthusiastic investigators review his 
experiments, and out of Stickler's laboratory comes 
Spina,-)- with a series of investigations calculated to 
completely overthrow Koch's theory which had made 
so promising a foothold, denying by the same line of 
experiments his most brilliant conclusions. \ 

To the physician whose experience stretches over a 
quarter of a century, the condition of medical science 
to-day is full of sharp contrasts. He compares the 
abundant facilities for preliminary study with his own 
scanty resources in the days of his pupilage. He 
visits yonder building* with all its generous spaces 
and magnificent appliances ; he examines the curricu- 
lum with its wide range of general and technical 
study; he sees the system of teaching and the 
methods of illustration conducted from a broader 
basis of scientific research and investigation ; he looks 
with admiration upon the enthusiasm of the student, 

* Die Etiologie das Tubercelose. Berliner Klin, 1882. 

f Studien ueber Tuberculosa Wien, 1883. 

% And what is this contest but a repetition of the profound 
conception of Aristotle, — that " Science begins when from a 
great number of experiences one general conception is formed 
which will embrace all similar cases." 

* New Building of the Harvard Medical School, Boylston St., 
Boston, dedicated Oct. 17, 1883. 



Dr. Crow ell. 101 



as, with an honest emulation, he works in the labora- 
tory or in the dissecting room ; and he mentally ex- 
claims : " Would that I were young again, to revel 
in all this wealth of advantage and opportunity ! " 

But this evolution in medical teaching is but the 
outgrowth of humble beginnings. The foundations 
laid by the fathers were well laid, and year by year , 
we have witness of their wisdom, and zeal, and 
patience in preparing the way for these larger results. 

How redolent of honest praise are the names of 
Warren, and Jackson, and Bigelow. What a debt of 
gratitude we owe to those great lights in medical 
science that have just disappeared from our horizon. 
How universal is the homage paid to the genius of 
Sims, and Parker, and Gross, whose wise and pro- 
found teahcings, combined with the labors of our 
eminent living teachers, have shaped the methods, 
and guided the research of modern thought and in- 
vestigation ; 

" With truth's directness, meeting each occasion, 
Straight as a line of light ! " 

The example of the University in establishing a 
sounder system of medical education, has been pro- 
ductive of wholesome results. And, inspired and 
impelled by the example, the other great medical 



102 In Memoriam 



schools of the land are revising their courses of study, 
and broadening and deepening their methods of in- 
struction. So that the ambitious student, desirous of 
obtaining a thorough preparation for the great duties 
of our profession, finds the doors of science wide 
open to invite and to receive him, that she may 
unfold her mystic stores. 

As the preparations for the work of the profession 
are so ample, as the avenues to success are so full of 
dignity and honor, how steadfast and noble should 
be the allegiance to the hand that has led us on. For, 
as Lord Bacon expresses it : "I hold every man a 
debtor to his professsion ; from the which as men of 
course do seek to receive countenance and profit, so 
ought they of duty to endeavor themselves by way of 
amends to be a help and ornament thereto." * 

The physician, by the special discipline for his 
work, and by the delicate relations he sustains to his 
patients, enlists confidence, and his opinions carry the 
weight of authority. He stands at those gateways of 
anguish that open and close upon mortal life. His 
fingers are upon those delicate keys whose slightest 
touch vibrates through a thousand strings. His well- 
attuned ear detects the faintest discord in the vital 
harmonies, and the varying phases of morbid action 
cannot escape the searchings of his aided vision. 

* Maxims of the Law, Preface. 



Dr. Crowe 11. 103 



But there are relations of a more general character 
that demand our attention. The great public is igno- 
rant upon matters of vital interest, and it may not be 
unprofitable to use the indulgence of this hour and 
consider the attitude of the 

Physician as a Popular Educator. 

What, then, are some of the topics that claim at- 
tention in our general relations to the community? 
Foremost stands the prolific question of Sanitary 
Science. 

The literature of hygiene has been scattered broad- 
cast over the land during the last decade. Science 
has been busy in unfolding to the public the more 
common sources of disease as found in house- 
drainage, and in the ordinary methods of disposing 
of sewage. When the modern system of household 
appliances was first introduced into our dwellings, we 
were so fascinated with the ingenious contrivances 
that they found a ready place in every part of our 
houses. Bedrooms, passageways, and halls were 
adorned with the glitter of marble basin and plated 
faucet, while convenient bath-rooms opened directly 
into the sleeping apartments of guests, without much 
reference to the character of the plumbing or the 
construction of sewers. As a result, fine residences 



104 I n Memoriam 



became the receptacles of filth distributed in an 
ingenious net-work of piping, as if contrived especial- 
ly for the introduction of disease from cellar to attic. 

This condition has been largely modified by the 
intelligent oversight of Boards of Health, and under 
the guidance of our State Board rapid strides are 
being made toward the remedying of many popular 
delusions. Still, much ignorance prevails concerning 
the simplest rules of health as respects domestic 
arrangements, and the physician by his familiarity 
with the location and the construction of houses, can, 
by timely interference, reform many grave errors, and 
prevent their repetition in newly constructed homes. 

The ambitious and successful business man, anxious 
to build a fine house, is apt to leave the plan of its 
construction entirely to the architect, who too often 
concentrates his thought upon the aesthetic aspects of 
the structure, so appealing to the eye, and so gratify- 
ing to the taste. The essential provision for plumb- 
ing and drainage is dealt with as of secondary impor- 
tance, and the house of our friend and patient which 
we are expected to praise and admire is full of the 
results of bungling plumbing, and leaky pipes and a 
damp cellar unconciously defile and dim the preten- 
tious beauty of drawing-room and hall. 

In our own metropolis of Boston these defects are 



Dr. CrowelL 105 



painfully apparent. Recent reports assure us that 
many fine residences in the Back Bay region are 
deficient in sanitary safeguards. Hundreds of houses 
are built upon piles in made ground. In the process 
of settling, which may continue for years, the drains 
become dislocated, and this permits sewage to satu- 
rate the foundation and sub-soil. " I have known,' ' 
writes a standard authority,* " seventy-eight cart- 
loads of earth polluted in this way to be taken from 
under a building in the city of Boston. " Official re- 
ports tell us that of three hundred and fifty-one 
houses examined in Boston in 1878, fifty-five per cent 
of the drains were imperfect. 

Not long since a successful business man invited 
his family physician to visit and inspect his new dwell- 
ing house built on the outskirts of a suburban city. 
The house was a " Queen Anne cottage " of the most 
approved pattern, picturesque in quaint gables and 
odd porches, and rich in the glow of color from 
tinted wall and painted glass. The hand of the artist 
was everywhere apparent, and each adornment sug- 
gested a home of refinement and taste. After admir- 
ing all these elements of beauty, the medical friend 
was practical enough to inquire as to the disposal of 
sewage and the appliances for ventilation and heating. 
The owner of this " gem of a cottage " was quite 

* Charles F. Wingate. " Unsanitary Houses of the Rich," 
North American Review, August, 1883. 



io6 In Memoriam 



oblivious on these points. They had been left to the 
plumber and the mason, with no personal or official 
oversight. It was found, upon examination, that the 
house sewage flowed directly into a cesspool situated 
in close vicinity to the house, and unprotected by any 
trap. The water-closets were supplied by pipes com- 
ing from the cistern containing the water used for culi- 
nary purposes, and the cellar was damp from the 
defective drainage of the clay bottom ; and neither 
bath-room nor water-closet had any adequate means 
of ventilation. The satisfied owner was appalled 
when told that h : s beautiful home contained the 
germs of disease and death, and the good physician 
only regretted that his unwelcome detection had not 
been more timely. 

How invaluable may be the suggestions and advice 
of the members of this Society in the location and 
the construction of dwellings, schoolhouses and fac- 
tories. In a large factory in a neighboring city in 
this state, the water-closets furnished for the opera- 
tives on each floor were unprotected by traps, and, as 
there was no official inspection of the building, the 
fact was unknown to the owner of the establishment 
until an epidemic among the operatives directed the 
attention of the the resident physicians to the sani- 
tary condition of the premises. 



Dr. Crowe 11 107 



Since the passage of the Act of 1877, authorizing 
the establishment of local Boards of Health in the 
larger towns of the Commonwealth, there has been a 
marked improvement in those localities that have 
availed themselves of the wise provisions of the 
statute. And physicians have rendered a noble work 
of self-sacrifice in organizing such Boards, and con- 
senting to remain in official position until a good 
working system could be secured. 

But many of our communities have not yet estab- 
lished such Boards, and the smaller towns cannot 
have the advantages of a complete organization. It 
is here that the physician can render most efficient 
work by personal instruction to his neighbors, in feasi- 
ble methods of water supply, in local drainage, in 
household cleanliness, and in those minor sanitary 
details which pertain to the order and the decencies 
of life. 

To what kind of places do we send our patients in 
the summer months, for the tonic influences of the 
blessed air from mountain or sea? Are we careful to 
inspect the premises and acquaint ourselves with the 
sanitary conditions of these resorts? How often are 
they deficient in the simplest rules of cleanliness, 
with privy, pig- sty and well in convenient proximity 
to each other, while frequently, especially in the farm- 



io8 In Memoriarn 



houses, the dark and unventilated cellars are reeking 
with the odors of decaying cabbage-leaves and musty 
cider barrels. At a favorite sea-side resort last sum- 
mer, typhoid fever made its appearance in one of the 
" cottages," when it was found that the victims had 
been drinking water from a well percolated and 
poisoned by sewage from a defective drain-pipe. 

Typhoid dysentery often appears at the old farm- 
houses to which we send invalids, and we find too late 
the stagnant pools of sink-water and the damp and 
filthy cellar. These vicious conditions will be rem- 
edied when we lift up the warning voice, and declare 
that no patronage shall be given to any resort, how- 
ever popular, that does not comply with the whole- 
some and simple rules of sanitary science. 

Is the question, " What do we eat," too trivial to 
arrest the attention of the physician? The people 
of New England are far behind the rest of the civil- 
ized world in the practical accomplishments of the 
culinary art. In the bustle and hurry of our busy 
population, but little attention has been given to the 
sanitary conditions of cooking, and there is much of 
truth in the assertion, that a French cook will make 
a nutritious dinner from the remnants of food that we 
consign to the waste barrel. How rarely do we find 
good bread, even in families where there is abundance 



Dr. Crow el L 109 



of provisions. How fondly do we cling to the con- 
ventional pie and doughnut, as if they were chief 
among the inalienable rights inherited from the 
fatheis. We smile at the astonished Frenchman who 
exclaimed, " What a people, a hundred religions and 
only one gravy ! " And yet is there not a sound philo- 
sophical principle involved in this ejaculation, so far 
as the gravy is concerned ? Most of our methods of 
cooking seem contrived to destroy rather than to con- 
serve the nutritious elements of the animal fibre, the 
albumen, the gelatine, and the fibrine. We have 
much to learn, not only from the French, but also 
from the Scandinavians as to the methods of prepar- 
ing food that shall be palatable, nutritious and 
easily digestible. 

When that intelligent observer, M. Taine, was 
visiting England, and inquiring into the methods of 
domestic life, he asked his host, " How do you cook 
vegetables in England?" " Cook them!" was the 
astonished reply, " why we boil them, how else should 
we cook them?" 

In this connection, there is an important class of 
the community demanding our attention. I refer to 
the laborers and operatives in our large towns, who 
labor on the public works, and in the factories. Many 
of these hard-working people are in the habit of 



no In Afemoriam 



" carrying their dinner," which is of course eaten cold, 
and the contents of these little tin pails and baskets 
are richer in their variety than in nutrition. No won- 
der that we have been called a race of dyspeptics. 
He will be a benefactor to his generation, as well as 
" pat money in his purse," who will devise a simple 
method of soup distribution among the operatives 
who depend upon this cheerless method of dining. 
With large tin cans, transported on hand-carts, hot 
soup could easily be distributed by dextrous hands 
among the shops and factories, and for a few cents a 
comforting and sustaining meal could thus be fur- 
nished. 

How often do we trace the sallow, attenuated look, 
the languid eye, and the feeble, inelastic step of many 
who seek our advice, to the lack of proper food at 
the proper time ! How frequently are we obliged to 
attribute the complicated train of female diseases to 
the miserable methods of living in cheap boarding- 
houses, combined with the constant demands of 
manual labor ! 

We need more of chemistry as applied to cooking. 
The public must be instructed in simple methods of 
preparing food, so that the nutritious elements will be 
retained ; and what better service can the practical 
chemist render, than to prepare a convenient hand-book 



Dr. Crowe II. 1 1 1 



for popular use, containing plain directions upon this 
vital subject? The philanthropist would substantially 
advance such benevolent work by offering a prize for 
the best treatise on practical cooking, for general dis- 
tribution among cooks of every grade, from the 
elaborate culinary establishments of the homes of 
wealth, from the fashionable saloon, hotel and eating- 
house, down to the humble kitchen of the frugal 
housewife. 

What kind of places do many of our business men 
occupy as offices where they make the money spent 
in the elegant houses where dwell the pets and the 
idols of home? Too often these counting houses and 
offices are found in dark, narrow streets, and located 
in a basement, full of the stifling odors from ill- 
ventilated warerooms and cellars. Here are found 
clerks working by gas-light in mid-day, and the 
result is seen in the sunken eye and the sallow look 
and the shrunken muscle. Many such places exist in 
this goodly city, and the laws of mercy cry out for 
the protection of those who are forced to occupy them. 

In the Conduct of the Sick Room, the services of 
the physician as teacher are of the first importance. 
It is here where ignorance will reign supremely, and 
with fatal sway, unless the firm and intelligent hand 



ii2 In Memoriam 



of authority interferes in behalf of the helpless and 
patient sufferers. In the furnishing of the room, in 
the disposition of air and sunlight and artificial heat ; 
in matters of cleanliness in the clothing and in the 
necessary appurtenances, and above all in the nursing, 
the vigilant eye and the guiding genius of the medi- 
cal attendant are among the essential elements in the 
successful treatment of disease. 

In private practice as well as in hospitals, the phy- 
sician should seek to have the furnishing of the sick 
room very simple, with as little of drapery and heavy 
carpeting as possible, and he should endeavor to 
secure ventilation and a proper adjustment of light by 
such contrivance as his ingenuity can suggest. The 
popular prejudice against air and sunlight has not yet 
faded from the face of the earth, and often the 
attendant will exclude both of these vital elements, as 
if they were the cause rather than the antidote of 
disease. In the regulation of artificial heat a good 
thermometer in the sick room is all important, and its 
registration should be insisted upon by the physician, 
and his standard of cleanliness in the care of the 
clothing and the vessels of the room should be often 
held up as a guide, and, if needful, as a terror to the 
presiding genius. 

It must be confessed that the average nurse, as 



Dr. CrowelL 113 



found in our country towns and villages, is not the 
ideal guardian angel of camps and of hospitals, 
whose fairy shadow, as she flits along the corridors, 
falls like a benediction upon the helpless sufferers. 
The country physician has to deal with different mate- 
rial, and oftentimes his greatest embarrassment in the 
treatment of disease arises from the ignorance or 
duplicity of the nurse. In the larger towns and cities, 
and especially in the metropolis, this difficulty has been 
effectually met and overcome by the training of nurses 
in the hospitals, and a noble army of helpers is now 
in the process of this discipline, whose intelligent 
labors will add to the success of medical treatment 
wherever they are available. 

But in the towns where hospitals do not exist, the 
trained nurse is almost unknown except in the most 
highly favored families. This vital want can be effect- 
ually met by the physicians of any given locality in 
the establishment of normal classes for the instruction 
of all women desiring the office of nurse, the physi- 
cians acting as teachers, under a system simple and 
elastic in its operation. In these classes, instruction 
should be given in those essential duties of the sick 
room which ought to come within the province of 
every attendant deserving the name of nurse. The 
basis of such instruction and its practical working are 



114 l n Me mo nam 



most admirably and succinctly set forth by Prof. 
Jacobi, in an address delivered a year ago before the 
Mt. Sinai Training School for Nurses.* He says : — 

" May I tell you what a good trained nurse may 
teach, and can teach? How to recognize a fever, 
how to compare the local temperatures of the several 
parts of the body, and how to equalize them ; she 
knows that ever so many feeble children might have 
been saved, if but the feet and legs had not been 
allowed to get cold ; how to bathe, when, and when 
to stop; how to regulate the position of the head — 
I remember quite well the case of inflammatory 
delirium which would always be relieved by propping 
up the head — how to treat intelligently an attack of 
fainting \ how to render cow's milk digestible by 
repeated boiling, or lime-water, or table-salt, or 
farinaceous admixtures; how to feed in case of diar- 
rhoea ; how to refuse food in case of vomiting ; how 
to apply and when to remove cold to the head ; how 
to ventilate a room without draught ; and a thousand 
other things. She will also use her knowledge and 
influence in weaning the public of nostrums, concern- 
ing which hardly anything is known except what you 

* Address delivered at the first commencement of the Mount 
Sinai Training School for Nurses, May 12, 1883. By Abraham 
Jacobi, M. D. 



Dr. Crowe 11. 115 



have to pay for the promises of the label. She will 
break the public of the indiscriminate use of quinia, with 
its dangers possibly for life ; cure you of the tendency 
of making the diagnosis of malaria the scapegoat of 
every unfinished or impossible diagnosis \ she will teach 
you that the frequent and reckless domestic use of 
chlorate of potassium leads to many a case of ailment, 
to chronic poisoning, possibly in the shape of Bright's 
disease, or to acute poisoning with unavoidable death. 
These are but very few of the things she can do, and 
but a little of the knowledge she cannot but dis- 
tribute." 

We might add to this enumeration, the ability to 
meet the many emergencies incident to the sick room. 
How to arrest a post-partum haemorrhage, how to tie 
the umbilical cord, how to assist in administering 
anaestht-tics in puerperal convulsions, and, above all, 
how to prepare the nourishment ordered by the phy- 
sician. 

Ask the ordinary nurse how she makes that popular 
decoction known as beef-tea, or how she prepares the 
artificial food that many infants are doomed to feed 
upon, and we shall find a lack of method and 
uniformity almost ludicrous. Here is where the train- 
ing hand of the physician should be felt, and by actual 



n6 In Memo nam 



object-teaching should he give the necessary instruc- 
tion. 

In those families where the limitations of poverty 
forbid the luxury of a nurse, the physician can do a 
timely service by the enforcement of a few simple 
rules for the relief of the suffering patient, and often- 
times he can introduce a system of attendance easily 
comprehended and followed. But what shall he do 
when he is confronted by the abodes of 

" Poverty, hunger and dirt? " 

— the haunts of idleness, shiftlessness and drunken- 
ness ; where the wretched offspring of disease and 
crime huddle together in the helplessness of want ! 
It is here that he must assume the part of the philan- 
thropist, and stoop down, and with pitying hands 
minister to God's suffering poor. 

And can he not do more than this ? Can he not, by 
his influence among the more favored classes, assist in 
the establishment of a system of ministration that 
shall result in lifting up these wretched sons of want, 
so that the coming generation, at least, can have some 
appreciation of the decencies of industry and of 
cleanliness. It is a noble part of the ministry pecu- 
liar to our profession to be able to inspire hope, and 
confidence, and an honest industry among the de- 



Dr. CrowelL 117 



scendants of families that for generations have sat in 
the " dark by-places," with no aspiration and no pur- 
pose. And in this way something effectual can be 
accomplished towards arresting the frightful mortality 
among the children of the poor. 

A noble army of women is doing a benevolent 
work in relieving the immediate wants of these poor 
sufferers. But in the broader and more radical work 
of instituting a system of distribution that shall look 
to a reformation, the physician, by his intimate knowl- 
edge of the causes of poverty and suffering, must 
act an important part as adviser and educator. To 
him, in a special sense belongs the duty of suggesting 
to charitable bodies, plans of operation that shall 
secure those practical results so essential to the sub- 
stantial success of free and generous giving. 

The Ethics of this Society, in their relation to a 
certain class of medical practitioners, are grossly 
misapprehended by the public. People can readily 
understand why we can have no affiliation with the 
vulgar charlatan or the arrant quack, but they do not 
as easily comprehend our attitude towards another 
class, composed largely of men of culture and high 
social position ; men who, perhaps, were educated 
in the same schools and colleges, and who seem in all 



1 1 8 In Memoriam 



respects to be peers with the fellows of this honored 
Society. Representatives of other professions have 
not been slow in their strictures, and we have been 
charged with bigotry, narrowness and jealousy, be- 
cause of our position in this relation. 

Much of this criticism arises from the ignorance of 
the popular mind as to the causes that compel an 
adherence to the fundamental principle, that the 
practice of medicine has a basis as broad and liberal 
as science itself, and therefore it cannot be limited in 
its universal scope by any system based upon an ex- 
clusive dogma, and depending for its success upon the 
charm of a " distinctive appellation." 

We might explain to all such critics, and without 
any compromise of professional dignity or of self-re- 
spect, that, from the very nature of things, these ex- 
clusive practitioners are the victims of their own 
environment ; that, by the narrowing process of their 
own theory, they shut themselves outside the gener- 
ous fellowship of liberal thinking, and take refuge 
within the walls that they have built. Is this the way 
that " stir-eyed science " conducts her votaries? Is 
she exclusive? Has she secrets locked up and hidden 
from the search of universal investigation? Is it not 
time that the epithets "regular," "old school," 
" allopath," popular nicknames coined by the opposers 



Dr. Crowe li. 119 



of science were discarded from our vocabulary and 
ignored forver ? We desire no other title than the sim- 
ple, homely name of Physician, a term broad enough to 
embrace all that is desirable or possible in the art of 
healing ; that recognizes every hint or suggestion of 
a liberal or intelligent experience ; that receives into 
its vocabulary the nomenclature of the honest, patient 
investigator, and accepts new theories, even at the 
sacrifice of those long cherished, but no longer prac- 
tical methods of the past. 

Not long since, a member of this Society was en- 
tertaining a company of clergymen around his hospi- 
table board, when the conversation turned upon that 
phase of our ethics relating to the discipline of certain 
members. " Why is it," said a leading divine to his 
host on this occasion, " that your Society pursues 
such a severe and illiberal course toward members 
who differ from you in methods of practice?" The 
genial doctor explained that the course pursued was 
based upon the same principal as that which governs 
all social compacts. " What would you do with a 
member of your religious body who denied the funda- 
mental elements of your doctrinal statement ; who 
assumed another and distinctive title based upon a 
speculation? And more than all that, who assisted 
in organizing and supporting a system whose princi- 



120 /// Memoriam 



pies were in direct opposition to those held vital to 
your existence?" "Do with him?" said the good 
minister, with commendable zeal, " We'd have him 
disciplined, and if he didn't repent and recant, we'd 
cut him off! " "That is somewhat like our position," 
was the quiet and convincing reply. 

A gentleman of my acquaintance, in high position 
in the legal profession, whose sick daughter was at- 
tended by a homoeopathic physician, was highly 
incensed when a member of this Society declined a 
consultation. The judge, who could adjust a knotty 
point of law, failed to discern the ethical relations of 
this case, and the only difference that he could see 
between the two practitioners was, that one was far 
more liberal and elastic in his practical methods 
than his conservative neighbor. He subsequently 
learned, however, that the cause of refusal was not 
based upon any narrow or selfish ground ; that it did 
not depend upon the administration of large doses or 
small doses, nor upon the belief in any particular 
dogma. The fault was in the assumption of a title 
and the formation of an organization " distinct from, 
and opposed to, the medical profession." 

Why not distinctly emphasize the statement, so 
that he that runs may read and understand, that the 
medical profession has no limitations except such as 



Dr. Crowe IL 121 



are made by science itself; that anywhere and every- 
where a welcome is extended to all who comply with 
the benign and rational conditions of membership ; 
that a profession based upon bigotry, narrowness or 
illiberality cannot exist under the searching light of 
the nineteenth century ? 

The attitude of the public in regard to the manage- 
ment of Contagious and Infectious Diseases is 
often at fault, and it is here where the timely interfer- 
ence of the physician is of vital moment. 

Notwithstanding the rules and restrictions of 
Boards of Health, the grossest carelessness prevails, 
and exposure to diseases accounted contagious is en- 
couraged by this easy-going negligence. Take, for 
instance, that much dreaded malady, diphtheria. Dr. 
Elisha Harris, of New York, in his report of the in- 
vestigations made by him of the epidemic that 
occurred in Vermont in 1879, ma -kes the following 
practical suggestions. " No other disease in our 
northern states has been more generally regarded as 
unpreventable, and none more capricious and fatally 
obstinate in its mode of prevalence, than diphtheria. 
Its apparently, and very probably sporadic origin in 
numerous instances ; its invasion of the most salubrious, 
as well as the most insalubrious quarters ; its variable 



122 In Memoriam 



malignancy, and its rapid fatality in numerous cases 
wherever it prevails, have furnished ample occasions for 
the unsettled opinions and sanitary regulations which 
prevail in regard to this destructive malady. Medical 
men no longer reject the conclusion which experience 
has taught concerning the personally contagious at- 
tribute of diphtheria \ but as this attribute is variable in 
its intensity in different cases and on different occasions, 
apparently, sanitary precautions and regulations 
adopted to extinguish or wholly control the virus of 
this disease are only occasionally applied and en- 
forced."* 

This condition of things in relation to this disease, 
(so carefully and so cautiously stated by high author- 
ity,) has resulted in a deplorable looseness among all 
classes. Because the contagion of diphtheria differs 
from that of other well-known diseases in the charac- 
ter of inception and development, the public mind 
becomes indifferent to the suggestions of sanitary 
authorities, and in many localities we find an almost 
open defiance to all precautions. There is often no 
system of isolation during the prevalence of an epi- 
demic ; there is gross neglect in the use of such 
disinfectants as are sanctioned by the best authorities ; 
there is but little attention paid to the cleansing 
of houses, bedding and clothing; and, worse than 

* Annual Report of National Board of Health, page 291. 



Dr. Crow ell 123 



all, there is a reckless disregard for the safety 
of the living in the disposal of the bodies of 
those who have fallen victims of the disease. Numer- 
ous instances could be cited where public funerals have 
been held, and the body of the dead child, bedecked 
with floral emblems in an open casket, has been fol- 
lowed to the grave by a procession of school chil- 
dren. This dangerous expression of sentiment finds 
encouragement too often by clergymen, teachers, and 
even parents, especially when the victim of the 
malady is a favorite child and very generally beloved. 
People need wholesome rules from the physician in 
the conduct of this disease, and, in the absence of 
local sanitary authority, his word must be potent in 
its explicitness, and with a savor of authority in its 
practical application. 

There is another question growing out of contagi- 
ous diseases that is engrossing no little attention. I 
refer to Vaccination. 

The public mind is somewhat divided as to the 
efficacy of vaccination as a preventive or modifier of 
small-pox, and also as to the danger attending the 
operation in transmitting certain loathsome diseases, 
more to be dreaded than the pest against which the 
prophylactic treatment is directed. In every little 



124 In Memoriam 



community, in every rural school district, there will 
be found men who will rebel at any attempt at com- 
pulsory vaccination, and oftentimes family feuds and 
bitter personal strife are the disagreeable results of an 
order for a general protection during a visitation of 
small-pox. Certain newspaper writers keep up the 
controversy, and sometimes a member of our profes- 
sion widens the breach by the authority of his asser- 
tions, or by the sophistry that lurks in isolated statis- 
tics, and in the glamor of semi-professional nomen- 
clature. 

Sir Lyon Playfair has presented a masterly array of 
facts, too convincing to admit of controversy, and 
which are worthy of reproduction. A military sur- 
geon testified before the committee of 1871, that of 
over one hundred and fifty thousand soldiers vaccina- 
ted, not one instance was on record of the transmis- 
sion of disease by the operation. And of the 
17,000,000 children vaccinated within the last thirty 
years, Sir Lyon challenged any one to produce four 
authentic cases that had been poisoned by a syphilitic 
taint. 

And in further elucidation of his position he pre- 
sented a concise array of facts showing the beneficial 
results of vaccination. These facts are so succinct 
that they are of practical value in meeting popular 
errors upon this vital topic. 



Dr. CrowelL 



™S 



In forty years after the introduction of vaccina- 
tion into England the death-rate from small-pox had 
fallen from 3000 per million to 600 per million, and 
after gratuitous vaccination had been ordered in 1841 
the average mortality was brought down in thirteen 
years to 305 per million. 

Again, when vaccination was made compulsory, in 
1871, the ratio of fatality was reduced to 223 per 
million; while in Scotland, in 1882, the rate was only 
6 per million. 

In London the deaths of the protected and un- 
protected are relatively 90 and 3350 per million, 
while in America the deaths of the unvaccinated are 
50 per cent, in Boston, 64 per cent, in Philadelphia, 
and 54 per cent, in Montreal ; and among the vacci- 
nated the mortality is from 15 to 17 per cent. 

It would seem, then, to be an easy matter to con- 
vince even the most skeptical that vaccination is a 
necessary means of defence against a terrible disease, 
and with Jaques in "As you Like It," the physician 
can confidently exclaim, with reference to this scourge 
of mankind : 

" Give me leave 
To speak my mind, and I will, through and through, 
Cleanse the foul body of the infected world, 
If they will patiently receive my medicine ! " 



126 In Memoriam 



What better service can the profession render to 
the community than to assert a well-defined polity 
against Superstition, Empiricism, and Quackery ? 

The medical world has been more or less under the 
sway of superstition from the time of the early 
Egyptians to the latter part of this nineteenth cen- 
tury. During the highest period of Grecian civiliza- 
tion the disciples of ^Esculapius depended upon 
feasts, fastings, and religious ceremonies for the cure 
of disease. The Romans combated the plague by 
incantations to the gods in the temple of Jove. The 
early Christian church believed that the power to 
cure disease lay wholly with the bishops and elders by 
the use of a miraculous power, independent of reme- 
dial agents. In later times, kings and queens of En- 
gland and France claimed the power of curing disease 
by the laying on of hands. Queen Anne touched the 
king's evil of Dr. Johnson, who was brought by his 
mother in his infancy for royal treatment by recom- 
mendation of a distinguished physician of Lichfield. 
And this kingly prerogative which prevailed through 
the Stuart dynasty, was afterward assumed by those 
of less note, who passed through all the stages of 
wonder-working power possible to a diseased imagina- 
tion. 

Of the multiplied forms of superstition that have 



Dr. CrowelL 



127 



come down to us as a legacy, some are too trifling 
and harmless to deserve attention. Let the Dr. 
Johnsons remain happy by always putting forward 
the left foot on entering a room, and allow the col- 
lege student the luxury of wearing a nutmeg strung 
around his neck as a talisman against disease. But 
when the foolish myths of an ignorant age are per- 
petuated and made to environ the pathway of a preg- 
nant woman, and subject her footsteps to a succession 
of pitfalls and spring-guns ; when the life of a young 
mother is made wretched by the old wives' fables of 
the dangers attending every period of lactation and 
dentition, it is well to challenge these miserable max- 
ims and " call a halt." 

Quackery does not always appear in the role of 
a mendicant who practices his base arts upon the 
unwary and the ignorant. It does not always flaunt 
its filthy rags and display the tawdry show of its 
stock-in-trade to the gaping crowds in the streets. 
It has other artifices and other devotees. It sometimes 
assumes the air of a gentleman and rides in a gilded 
coupe. It finds too easy access to the home of afflu- 
ence and fashion, and the doors of the library and 
the boudoir open to its persuasive knock. It can 
adapt itself to all moods, and patiently lies in wait 



128 In Memoriam 



for the weakness and duplicity of suffering humanity. 
It is in such lurking and subtle form and garb that 
this foe to science and to humanity is most to be 
feared. And do we not sometimes find it seeking 
refuge behind the protecting seal of a piece of parch- 
ment? 

It is a grim satire upon the pride and glory of 
medical science that the confidence of the great pub- 
lic in the power of specifics, as curative agents, 
remains as strong as in the former days of alchemy 
and astrology. Perkins' tractors and Bishop Berke- 
ley's tar-water are perpetuated in the long list of 
patent nostrums that come in like a flood and threaten 
to overwhelm the land. Colossal fortunes are 
amassed from the sale of vile concoctions whose 
virtues are set forth with all the glaring allurements 
of cheap art, and the convincing logic of those grate- 
ful people who, in turgid rhetoric, tell the suffering 
public of their ready relief from maladies which 
" regular physicians " had tried in vain to cure. What 
a piece of patchwork is man, with his garniture of 
liver pads, lung protectors, electric belts and jackets ! 
How is he guarded from all pulmonary ailments by 
alternate trials of stuffing and starving ! How is he 
led captive by the invitations and warnings that con- 
front him in painted characters upon every available 



Dr. CrowelL 129 



rail-fence or rocky cliff in the land ! How does the 
poor long-suffering stomach run the peptonized 
gauntlet, and barely escape destruction in the dread- 
ful ordeal ! And "will not mercy cry out in pity for 
the helpless babies in their struggles with many of the 
preparations of artificial food ? Denied the nourish- 
ment that nature so bounteously pours out, these poor 
victims of mercenary greed are stuffed with an ever- 
varying round of compounds that vie with each other 
only in the different grades of worthlessness. 

Empiricism not unfrequently appears in the itiner- 
ant lecturer, who, with an airy grace, exhibits his 
credentials, and unfolds his manikins and his skele- 
tons to the applauding public. And, having prepared 
the way by a generous course of free lectures, he plies 
his specialty with lucrative success, and' then leaves 
his victims to wonder why they are not cured, while 
he is " over hills and far away" with his ill-gotten 
gains. And before the old-fashioned family doctor 
has finished making repairs on mutilated eyes and 
scarified organs of generation, or has found time to 
remove the pessaries and supporters, and liver-pads 
and electric belts, the annual visitant again appears, 
and finds new victims to his devices, with a generous 
patronage from his old dupes. 



130 In Memoriam 



Massachusetts is far behind many of her sister 
states in the enactment of laws regulating the prac- 
tice of medicine. While nearly every other state and 
territory have done something, more or less effective, 
in this direction, our own state is unprotected, and 
quackery in every form is practically unhindered in 
its imposition upon the public. 

The Illinois Board of Health did important service 
in the exposure, in November, 1882, of the fraudu- 
lent " Bellevue Medical College of Massachusetts," 
which issued medical diplomas under the protection 
of a law relating to " Manufacturing and other Cor- 
porations." And the officers of this " bogus" college 
contended that they had a legal right to issue diplo- 
mas and confer degrees without any restriction on 
account of study or professional attainments. The 
United States Commissioner, before whom the trial 
was had, held this plea to be valid, and dismissed the 
case with the following remarks: "The state has 
authorized this college to issue degrees, and it has 
been done according to legal right. The law makes 
the faculty of the college the sole judges of eligibil- 
ity of applicants for diplomas. If the faculty choose 
to issue degrees to incompetent persons, the laws of 
Massachusetts authorize it." 

Such an outrageous possibility, under a law of 



Dr. CrowelL 



I3 1 



Massachusetts, has been cancelled, and the state 
saved from further disgrace in this direction, by the 
passage, June, 1883, of an act forbidding any corpo- 
ration organized under the law referred to from " con- 
ferring medical degrees or issuing diplomas, unless 
specially authorized by the Legislature so to do." 

Why should Massachusetts lag so far behind other 
states in the enactment of laws so wise, just, and 
humane? Laws, not primarily intended to protect 
the medical profession, but to stand between the 
public and the horde of vampyres that feed upon the 
life blood of their ignorant, superstititious and de- 
luded victims. 

Is it not the duty of the members of our profession 
to educate the popular mind into a right appreciation 
of this vital question, and so to enlighten our legisla- 
tors as to induce them to enact laws that shall redeem 
the good old Bay State from the contumely of foster- 
ing, by her legislation, the basest kind of frauds upon 
her citizens ? 

Such, then, Mr. President and Fellows, are some of 
the methods by which the physician can render ser- 
vice to the public. It may be unrequited service ; 
it may be called drudgery, but it is the drudgery that 
comes from ministration and sacrifice. It is the ser- 



132 In Memoriam 



vice essentially belonging to the highest ideal of the 
medical profession \ a profession which makes the 
most profound problems of scientific research subser- 
vient to the wants of suffering humanity ; whose 
noblest teachers and specialists are found wherever 
misfortune and woe have sown the seeds of disease. 

It is a service scattered broadcast over the land. 
The same in the country doctor who toils among the 
hills of Berkshire, or along the sandy reaches of the 
Cape, as in the city practitioner who threads his way, 
not only among the homes of affluence, but also 
through the lanes and alleys, — the " Ghettos of the 
poor." In the eloquent words of " Hyperion," the 
physician is the servant of the public, — " toiling 
much, enduring much, fulfilling much ; and then, with 
shattered nerves, and sinews all unstrung, lies down 
in the grave and sleeps the sleep of death, and the 
world talks of him while he sleeps ! And as in the 
sun's eclipse we can behold the great stars shining in 
the heavens, so in this life-eclipse does he behold the 
lights of the great Eternity, burning solemnly and 
forever." 



ADDRESS ON THE PRESENTATION 

OF THE PORTRAIT OF HARRIET NEWELL 
TO THE BRADFORD ACADEMY. 

"Whene'er a noble deed is wrought, 
Whene'er is spoken a noble thought, 
Our souls in glad surprise 
To higher levels rise. " 

And our souls to-day, Mr. President, rise to higher 
levels under the inspiration of this sentiment of the 
poet. Seventy- two years ago, in the little village of 
Haverhill, on the other side of the Merrimack, a beau- 
tiful young woman, nineteen years of age, consecrated 
her life to the work of foreign missions. This deter- 
mination, so full of novelty, so tinged with the ideal of 
romantic adventure, was a mystery to her youthful 
companions, and many of the savants of the village 
shook their heads in grave doubt as to the results of 
an enterprise that promised so little. But Harriet 
Atwood had made up her mind to a high resolve. 



134 I n Memoriam 



When she gave her life to the sendee of Christ in her 
conversion, it was no unmeaning ceremony. It meant 
anything and anywhere with the Divine Master for a 
leader, and He who came not to be ministered unto, but 
to minister, and to give his life, was to her a complete 
pattern and guide. 

In the ancestral home, and in the village church in 
Haverhill, she had learned the story of the cross. 
From that little band of devout and earnest men, 
gathered in the old meeting-house at the foot of this 
hill, she heard the cry of distress from far-off lands ; 
from the pious teachers of this time-honored Academy, 
she imbibed the missionary spirit ; her purpose became 
strengthened, she joined her life with the life of 
Samuel Newell, and henceforth Harriet Newell stands 
before the world as one of the pioneers in the work of 
American foreign missions. 

" Companion-saint with her, who shares with thee, 
The Christian wreath of immortality !" 

Among her private papers we find the following 
record, bearing date Aug. 27, 1809 : "When I entered 
my thirteenth year, I was sent by my parents to the 
Academy at Bradford. A revival of religion com- 
menced in the neighborhood, which in a short time 
spread into the school. A large number of the young 



Dr. Crowe 11. 135 



ladies were anxiously inquiring what they should do to 
inherit eternal life. I began to inquire what these 
things meant. My attention was solemnly called to the 
concerns of my immortal soul. My convictions were 
not as pungent and distressing as many have had, but 
they were of long continuance. It was more than 
three months before I was brought to cast my soul on 
the Saviour of sinners, and rely on Him for salvation. 
The ecstasies which many new-born souls possess 
were not mine, but I was filled with a sweet peace, a 
heavenly calmness, which I never can describe. The 
character of Jesus appeared infinitely lovely, and I 
could say with the Psalmist, 'Whom have I in Heaven 
but Thee, and there is none on earth I desire but 
Thee.'" 

Under date of March 1, 181 1, occurs this "De- 
votion" breathing the spirit of St. Augustine : "Father 
of lights, it is the office of Thy Spirit to create holy 
exercises in the hearts of Thy creatures. Oh, may I 
enter upon this month with renewed resolutions to 
devote myself exclusively to Thee, that at its close I 
may not sigh over misspent hours." 

And after she had decided to give her life to the 
work of foreign missions, in a letter to an intimate 
friend, just before she left her native land forever, she 
writes : "The glorious morn of the millennium hastens. 



136 In Memoriam 



With an eye of faith, we pass the mountains that now 
obstruct the universal spread of the gospel, and be- 
hold with joy unspeakable the beginning of a cloudless 
day, the reign of peace and love. Shall we be content 
to live indolent, inactive lives, and not assist in the 
great revolution, about to be effected in this world 
of sin ? Let worldly ease be sacrificed ; let a life of 
self-denial and hardships be welcome to us, if the 
cause of God may thereby be most promoted and 
sinners most likely to be saved." 

Short, indeed, was her career. Within a twelve- 
month she fell a victim to disease, and after many 
severe hardships, and much suffering, she found a 
grave in the distant Isle of France, before the work of 
her mission was hardly begun. From a worldly 
standpoint, her career would be accounted a failure. 
But, oh, what an impulse did her sweet young life give 
to the great cause of Christian missions ! How did 
her example inspire faith and courage in many timid 
and doubting souls ! How has her name come down 
through the generations as a talisman to every heroic 
Christian heart ! How, under its glowing beauty, has 
woman given up the allurements of home and friends 
and joined the noble army whose banners now stream 
in every clime ! Such a life is not in vain. It is per- 
petuated in a long line of faithful followers, whose paths 
"shine more and more unto the perfect day." 



Dr. Crowe IL 137 



We have before us to-day a touching illustration of 
the power of this young life in moulding and shaping 
Christian character. When the memoirs of Harriet 
Newell were published, shortly after her death, they 
fell into the hands of a young girl who was deeply 
impressed by the example of sacrifice and self-conse- 
cration set forth in the little volume. Her life, too, 
was consecrated to the blessed work of ministration, 
presenting to us in beautiful symmetry, the dignity 
of true womanhood. This little book was fondly 
cherished by this devout woman, who, as the wife of 
the late Dr. Dorus Clarke, became eminent in that 
faithful band of Christian workers whose praise is in 
all the churches. Her daughter, Mrs. Hammond, of 
Boston, presents this precious souvenir to the library 
of this Academy, to be preserved among its choice 
treasures. 

It is most fitting that Bradford Academy should rec- 
ognize such a character as that of Harriet Newell, for it is 
but an outgrowth of the system of instruction that has 
marked the history of this school from its earliest in- 
ception to the present time. It is here that the 
great lesson of ministration and sacrifice has been per- 
sistently and faithfully taught. It is here where pious 
teachers have given a divine impulse to many a youth- 
ful heart that has borne the fruit of a noble life, not 
only in the high places of the world, but also 



138 In Memoriam 



"In the calm and quiet ways 
Of unobtrusive goodness known." 

And so, Mr. President, this graceful memorial which 
we present here to-day, has been furnished by one 
whose interest in this school has been unremitting, 
whose early life came under the influence of its in- 
struction, and whose services in later years as a 
member of the board of visitors have been highly 
valued by the Trustees. She gives it to this school in 
behalf of the Center Congregational Church in 
Haverhill, which has been for generations the religious 
home of an honored ancestry, that church whose 
early annals, under another title, bore the name of 
Harriet Atwood. Receive it, sir, as a symbol of 
devotion to a high and holy principle. May it take its 
place upon these walls beside the portraits of other 
notable characters whose fame has added dignity to 
this institution. 

And as the pupils who are here before us to-day, 
and those who shall gather here in the coming years, 
look upon the girlish face, so faithfully delineated by 
the artist, and learn the touching story that it repre- 
sents, may they receive the inspiration set forth by 
one of our poets, and say : 



Dr. CrowelL 



*39 



f Yet all may win the triumphs thou hast won. 
Still flows the fount whose waters strengthened thee. 

The victors ' names are all too few to fill 
Heaven's mighty roll \ the glorious armory 

That ministered to thee, is open still ! " 



Selections. 



A PERSONAL EXPERIENCE — FAST DAY. 



Haverhill, April 12, 1871. 
I must tell you about my buying a horse. One of 
the first sights that impressed me on my arrival here, 
was the fine display of horses that greeted my eye on 
every side. These animals are not the large, sleek 
and fat specimens of the genus horse so often seen in 
the streets of Philadelphia. They are smaller, more 
graceful in their general contour, and much faster 
travellers. I found that nearly every business man, 
professional man, and thrifty mechanic, drove his 
team, not always the most stylish, but neat and trim. 
So Mary Ann and the children began to think that we 
were quite peculiar in our habits of walking to town, 
to church, to school and to business. I had quite a time 
in battling their prejudices, and set my face sternly 
against any foolish outlay for what we didn't need. 
But I could discover evident signs of unrest and dis- 
comfort among the group of faces around my table, 



144 In Memoriam 



and Tom had the boldness to intimate (respectfully) 
that if we couldn't have a horse, he didn't want any- 
thing. What could I do? I must not make my 
household miserable in order to enjoy my pet theories, 
I reasoned, and from that moment I was lost. " Ah, 
your old weakness," I hear you say. Well, I went to 
a standard authority in horse trade, and threw myself 
upon his mercy. He understood the situation at 
once, he took me in with a benignant glance, and 
knew by intuition just what kind of an animal I 
wanted, and he had that very horse in his stable. 
Would I go and look at him? I went. Now my 
knowledge of the horse is in exact proportion to my 
familiarity with the habits and qualities of the royal 
Bengal tiger. So when the noble beast was trotted 
out I put on a very wise and knowing look, and when 
the age was determined by counting the teeth, and it 
was announced that he was just seven (although he 
really had more teeth than that) , I became convinced 
that I could do no better deed than to buy the young 
and handsome fellow. I bought him for a good 
round sum, which my friend, the owner, said was 
cheap for such a beast, and patting me and the horse 
alternately, he waved me a graceful adieu as I drove 
my new purchase gaily out of the yard. I wisely 
thought it best to try the animal a little before I sur- 



Dr. Crow ell. 145 



prised the intrenched at home. I therefore drove 
down the principal street, and I must say that I felt 
proud of my bargain, and quite guilty that I had 
been so long opposed to the wishes of my family. 
But all at once I saw something that went wrong with 
Prince (I had named him) for he pricked up his ears, 
and all at once stopped ! I couldn't make him go. 
I gently struck him with my whip, when by a beauti- 
ful combination he kicked, reared and shied in one 
movement, and then assumed his passive attitude. A 
sympathetic crowd assembled, and various remedies 
were suggested, but all in vain. And then I heard 
some one in the crowd say, " he has bought that old 
balky hack — not worth fifty dollars — twenty- five 
years old, etc." I jumped from my seat and hired 
a by-stander to lead him back from whence he came, 
while I walked home musing upon human nature and 
Darwin's theory of natural selection. 

The next morning, with the assurance that belongs 
to injured innocence, I paid a visit to the man who 
had so wronged me, that by my presence simply I 
might crush him. But he met me with the grace of 
an eastern prince, assuring me that never in the his- 
tory of that horse had he been known to behave in 
such a manner. The fault was simply in my style of 
driving. I think I never saw such a pleasant man, 



146 In Memoriam 



and gladly paying him fifty dollars to take the horse 
back, I went on my way relieved in spirit. In the 
evening I told my experience to my neighbor, who 
didn't seem much surprised, but kindly advised me to 
go into the country and buy a horse of an honest 
farmer. Before deciding to do this, I had made up my 
mind that I would never buy another horse without 
first trying him. I had also learned my mistake about 
the teeth, — that it was not the number of teeth but 
the marks upon them that indicate the age. Armed 
with this preparation I started off, some ten miles into 
New Hampshire, and after due inquiry found a good 
honest stock farmer, who had a horse that he didn't care 
to sell, but still he would let me examine him. I did 
this thoroughly, and then we tried him on the road. 
He went finely, and when the honest farmer tenderly 
touched him up with his long whip, I thought I had 
never seen a horse behave more kindly. After much 
persuasion the animal was mine, to be sent to me the 
next day. How happy we were the next afternoon, 
as we drove gaily out of the yard in our new beach- 
wagon with my honest country horse. Mary Ann and 
the children were so full of talk that I had uncon- 
sciously let the horse fall into a walk, so I kindly 
touched him up {a la honest farmer) but he wouldn't 
trot. I gently jerked the reins, still he walked. I 



Dr. Crowell. 147 



then urged him by all the epithets known to my stock 
of horse phrases, but he pursued the even tenor of 
his way, and he still pursues it. I think I shall keep 
him, for he is a very safe family horse, and walks well, 
but O, the fall that has ensued to the pride of the 
Rush family ! But I cannot find it in my heart to 
blame the poor horse, and I comfort myself with the 
reflection that I bought him of an honest man. 
****** 
Fast day passed by without any special recognition 
either by the religious or secular world. The day 
seemed to me to be a sort of compromise between 
Sunday and the fourth of July. The morning hours 
were devoted to church going while the after- 
noon was given up to amusement and recreation more 
or less boisterous according to the temper of the 
individual. The spirit and intent of the day as estab- 
lished by the fathers have been sadly lost in these 
days of material splendor and self-preferment. The 
concert in the evening was a very pleasant entertain- 
ment. The programme was what the musical critics 
would call " popular," but it pleased the audience ex- 
tremely well for all that. Perhaps the persistent en- 
cores were in bad taste, but the singers good natured- 
ly yielded to this caprice, and everybody seemed 
happy and satisfied. Mrs. West, the leading soprano 



148 In Memoriam 



in Boston, sang at this concert, and in the quality of 
her voice, and the power of expression she reminded 
me strongly of Miss Pintard, formerly the most ndted 
singer in Philadelphia, and who assisted Jennie Lind 
in some of her brilliant concerts in Musical Fund 
Hall. I am no musical critic, (Heaven forbid !), but 
I do confess to a genuine satisfaction when listening 
to the " concord of sweet sounds. 7 ' 



THE OLD BRIDGE, 



Haverhill, April n, 1873. 

I know you are interested in whatever relates to 
old Haverhill as it was to us forty years ago. Forty 
years ! what a stretch of time for memory to glance 
over, and how crowded full of early experiences, that 
seem very tender and dear to us, as we begin to live 
more in the past than in the present or the future ! 

What son of Haverhill does not delight in Plug 
Pond, Ox Common, and Dr. Brickett's huckleberry 
hill? The faces and the voices of childhood come 
back again, and we count the names of the boys and 
girls that joined us in the simple sports of those early 
days. Don't you remember the group of merry girls 
sitting under the old pine tree on that northern slope 
on a hot day in August ? How reverently we broke 
up bushes for them and laid them at their feet, that 



150 In Mem ria m 



they might pick the berries without exposure to the 
sun. 

But I did not take up my pen to write a romance, 
but to tell you of a change about to be made in one 
of the old and most noted landmarks of our growing 
city. 

The old Haverhill bridge is to come down ! That 
venerable wooden structure, so familiar to our 
boyish eyes, with its long, shed-like roof, its three 
noble spans of arches and massive piers, must soon 
give way to the march of improvement, to make 
place for a more modern structure of iron. To the 
casual observer and the new comer, this change will 
seem only natural and desirable ; but to every Haver- 
hill boy of the past generation, the disappearance of 
the old bridge will seem like the loss of one of the 
" old familiar places." as Charles Lamb hath it. 

How we used to look upon it as one of the wonder- 
ful things in our little creation, as we rowed or sculled 
beneath its lofty arches, and felt the cool currents of 
air that sucked through the dark spaces, and mar- 
velled at the huge, interlacing timbers that supported 
the arched carriage-way above. Sometimes the more 
daring of our number would climb the lofty piers and 
run along the broad rafters, where a single misstep 
would have plunged us into the black current thirty 
feet below. 



Dr. CrowelL 151 



Don't you remember when the male department of 
Bradford Academy was in its glory, under the sharp 
eye of Preceptor Greenleaf, and some dozen of us 
boys used to go in groups over the old bridge every 
morning, to put ourselves under , his discipline ? We 
found it much more convenient to walk up among the 
rafters, or to crawl in and out among the many open- 
ings, than to walk soberly along the way appointed for 
pedestrians. Now and then, we would steal a chance 
to creep down the long stairs upon the abutments, 
and go in swimming from the sides of the piers, tak- 
ing good care that the awful tollman did not find us 
in this predicament. Sometimes on our way home, 
when the tide was low, we would wade to the first 
pier on the Bradford side, and "go in" from that 
position. 

But the greatest fascination for us was the line of 
stage-coaches that crossed the bridge every day on 
the route to Boston. The most favored of us would 
often catch a ride on the top of the coach with Thomp- 
son or Dow, as far as the Academy. Sometimes we 
ventured a ride with Pinkham, on the Salem stage, 
but that was rather a " slow coach " for us. What a 
rumbling was made by Slocumb's heavy baggage 
wagons, as they went in long line over the rattling 
planks of the bridge, laden with the boxes of shoes 



*5< 



In Mejnoriam 



from our early manufacturers. We would often hear 
their heavy thunder in a half dream, as they started 
off in the early morning, before daylight. But now a 
drove of Vermont cattle comes crowding down Main 
street. Let us take our station at the gate of the 
bridge and watch Greenleaf and Emerson as they 
count them, a thousand strong. How they huddle 
together as they press through the narrow gate and go 
careering over the trembling arches, affrighted at their 
own noise upon the loose planks. 

Greenleaf, the tollman, had a sharp eye, and it was 
pretty difficult to " run toll," and we knew he had 
a stout horse-whip in the toll-house ready for the 
backs of daring ones who tried to slip by in a crowd. 
But sometimes, on " training day," we would some- 
how manage to screen ourselves behind some lofty 
soldier, and march boldly over to Bradford side. 

But on glorious " muster day/' on the plain on the 
opposite shore, we could manage to pass in the crowd 
and keep our two cents for gingerbread and pop-beer. 
Yes. dear old chum, these simple pleasant scenes 
come up before us now, as the hand of improvement 
is about to demolish the old landmark, with its famil- 
iar but homely length of arch and roof; and the little 
village as it looked forty years ago comes up before 
us. The old church, with its tall spire and the hand- 



Dr. Crow ell. 153 



some green in front ; the Golden Ball Hotel, with swing- 
ing sign and immense gilt ball ; the long, low, narrow 
shops opposite, containing the Haverhill Bookstore, 
the Post-office, barber Galley's shop, Sheriff Bartlett's 
office, and Captain Trow's shoemaker's shop ; the 
curious steamboat, built by Captain Haseltine, that 
burst one of her seventy small boilers at every trip ; 
the long line of wharves, filled with merchandise, in- 
cluding the tempting molasses hogshead, with an air- 
hole just big enough for the insertion of a straw — 
these, with all their quaintness and poetry, come up 
before us. Nor can we forget the Haverhill Aqueduct, 
then in its primitive state of wooden logs. How 
intently we watched dear old Mr. Jordan, in his con- 
ventional cue, boring the pine logs with huge auger, 
always having a good supply on hand to replace any 
defunct pipe that had " sprung a leak." I am sorry 
to add that some of the more wicked boys would now 
and then toss a lump of fresh earth into the trench, 
where he was busy beneath, adjusting the logs. 

But these things can never seem to our children as 
they do to us, and they often laugh at us when we 
talk them over in a sort of exhilarated dream. O, 
the rogues, they won't believe that there ever could 
have been any delight in those primitive days, when boys 
went barefooted, and when a ninepence on Fourth of 



154 I n Memoriam 



July was considered a princely gift from our stern and 
conservative fathers. 

But the world moves, and if we do not move with 
it we shall be left behind. So we bid a kind adieu to 
the old, and welcome in the new. 



SUMMER TALK. 

Hillside Farm, May 30, 1871. 

As several respectable persons belonging to that 
great family, the Public, have expressed some interest 
in my letters to my good friend Colonel Bangs, I 
have been induced, I may say by "urgent solicita- 
tion/' to continue my rambling talk. So, from my 
rural retreat, Hillside Farm, I shall take side glances 
at men and things, and give to the Gazette-reading 
world the result of my philosophical deductions ! 

We are quiet here on our farm, containing just one 
acre, agreeably diversified with hill and dale. Our 
lawn is crisp and green, well cropped with our patent 
cutter, our crops are coming up finely, and if the 
drought is not too severe, we shall reap abundant 
harvests all summer long. We have a very comforta- 
ble house. To be sure, it cannot boast of a Mansard 



156 In Memoriam 



roof, or a cupola, but it is adorned with a very hand- 
some chimney, which forms quite a striking architect- 
ural feature. And then we have woodbines, and 
madeira vines, and rose bushes, in abundance, and 
our beanpoles are tall and comely, patiently waiting 
for the graceful twining of the beans. In fact our 
farm looks well, and we invite all well-disposed per- 
sons to give us a friendly call, politicians, as such, 
quack doctors, and china peddlers excepted. 

We have just finished that terrible work, so strange- 
ly fascinating to housekeepers — namely, house-clean- 
ing. Mary Ann and I have a peaceable quarrel every 
season about the carpets, I insisting that they should 
be let alone until they are worn out, she gently con- 
tending that they must all come up. I will only add 
that said carpets are all up, well beaten, and safely 
stowed away until winter, while our floors are covered 
with nice, cool matting. Well, the rooms do seem 
cool this hot day, while a gentle, but emphatic voice 
says, " of course they do." We have gone on very 
well contented in our country retreat, and have 
thought of ourselves as highly favored above many of 
our hot, dusty neighbors down below. But yesterday, 
the peace of my household was somewhat disturbed 
by a formal call from one of our lady friends. After 
admiring our " cosy, nice " rooms, and smiling ap- 



Dr. Crowe 11. 157 



provingly upon the display of taste in the arrange- 
ment of pictures, etc., (she is the female authority) 
she turned to Mary Ann and asked : 

" Have you spoken for your rooms yet? " 

"Rooms, what rooms?" innocently inquired my 
wife. 

" Why, rooms in the country," said she, evidently 
surprised at my good lady's simplicity. 

" But is not this the country? " she ventured to ask. 

" O, but I mean away back among the mountains, 
amid the bold, grand things of nature, and all that, 
you know; why," added she with great conclusive 
force, " everybody that is anybody always goes, either 
to the mountains or the sea-side, but the mountains 
are all the rage just now." 

"But my dear madam," said I, venturing to inter- 
rupt, " we have come all the way from Philadelphia 
and are settled snugly here, for very purpose of en- 
joying the country air. Where can you find lovelier 
scenery or a more inviting retreat ? Shall we leave all 
this, and subject ourselves to the inconveniences of hotel 
boarding, and all the miserable fooleries of fashiona- 
ble "— 

"Stop, sir, if you please," said she with great dig- 
nity of manner, "you talk just like all the men. I 
was talking to Mrs. Rush." 



158 In Memoriam 



I felt somewhat chagrined at my interference, and 
beat a hasty and somewhat ignoble retreat to my gar- 
den, to meditate among my growing plants and 
vegetables. 

But the effect of that visit is quite marked, and 
the complaints of my household about the heat, and 
the dust, and the noise, are frequent and sad. And 
now, nearly every morning, my good lady reads to me 
from the paper, some tempting chance for board in a 
farm-house, in the vicinity of the mountains or the 
lakes. I receive the information with great magna- 
nimity and silent composure. " But what will people 
say of us if we stay cooped up here all summer?" 
Ah, that is a social question of great import, and I 
will take it into serious consideration, and report at 
some future time. Men build fine houses, fitted up 
with every comfort and luxury that taste and wealth 
can suggest, and furnish, and lay out beautiful grounds, 
and make their homes an earthly paradise, and then 
shut them up and leave all for the dreadful experi- 
ences of railroads, stage coaches and hotels. We 
have a neighbor who stays at home just long enough 
to paint and clean and beautify the establishment, 
and then away to some new scene of excitement or 
pleasure. Mr. Pickwick and his immortal party went 
to Bath, not for any special purpose, but simply be- 



Dr. CrowelL 159 



cause they never had been there. And so many peo- 
ple travel, not for any definite object, but simply to 
see sights that some more ambitious friend has seen. 
Whole families, poor innocent children and all, go 
sweltering in the cars through the long summer days, 
suffering all the inconveniences incident to such travel 
in search of they know not what. Their great pur- 
pose seems to be to get away from home. Away 
from cool refreshing north rooms, from nice bath 
rooms, and ice closets, and soft, fresh water, and a 
market. They leave all these comforts, and pay 
dearly for the pleasure of being made uncomfortable, 
and eating they know not what. 

" But," says Mrs. Malcontent, " people must have a 
change, and not keep cooped up at home like dunces 
all their days," True, they must, but the change need 
not be made when all the Jenkinses are abroad. 
Why fret and worry out half your days, for fear some 
smart neighbor will outdo you in the matter of lace 
shawls, and diamonds? Why feel disturbed at the 
vulgar display of costly trinkets at a country boarding 
house, or why feel at all disturbed when some snobby 
fellow drives his splendid equipage, and puts your 
modest outfit all in the shade? We shall get our- 
selves into trouble just as soon as we suffer ourselves 
to be affected by the caprices of society. He is the 



160 In Memoriam 



independent man. who looks upon the moving pageant 
of life, unmoved, and undisturbed by its absurdities, 
but profiting by the lessons of daily experience, and 
asserting his manhood on all proper occasions. 

Memorial Day ! A day of hallowed memories, 
precious and tender in thousands of hearts. How 
much those poor fellows, whose graves will bloom so 
freshly to-day, suffered in the time of our great neces- 
sity ! O, grateful country, scatter flowers and wreathe 
garlands, and send forth deepest thanks, that such 
men were found to do the work of the fearful hour ! 
And while remembering the dead, forget not the 
living, the needy families of the fallen, and the 
maimed heroes. How may strong men must forego 
the discharge of the active duties of life, because of 
the terrible fortunes of war. Be grateful to such, and 
provide for their great need, and do not subject them 
to the indignity of resorting to menial employments 
in the public streets. 



ABOUT DOGS. 



Haverhill, March 30, 1871. 
If that tender-hearted man, Mr. Bergh, should visit 
Haverhill, he would be deeply moved in witnessing 
the special care everywhere shown toward that much 
abused class of animals — the dogs. These thrive 
wondrously. In variety, in number, and in the gen- 
eral excellencies of the dog character, the canine 
race of Haverhill can challenge the world. You look 
from your window in the early morning, and your eye 
is greeted with a merry troop of these useful animals 
galloping up the street, in graceful lines, now dodging 
around a block, and then suddenly curveting through 
an alley, 

" Both mongrel, puppy, whelp and hound, 
And curs of low degree," 



1 62 In Memoriam 



presenting an illustration of animated nature, or 
" object teaching," worthy the attention of every 
lover of progress. If your front gate is open they 
come bouncing through your terraced yard, breaking 
down what few little things you may chance to have 
sprouting there, and if you drive them from this part 
of your domain, in they come with reinforcements 
through your back gate, fresher and merrier than ever. 
If, under the influence of a momentary impulse, you 
take up a stone to hurl at these reckless invaders 
upon home rights, they stop short, and look at you 
so knowingly in the face, and seem so innocent and 
confiding that your anger leaves you, your stone 
drops, and you say with calm philosophy, " Play on, 
dogs, and take your share of pleasure, for, as the 
world and dogs go, what's the use in fretting over 
these little things?" and, if, as some of our reformers 
say, " everything is going to the dogs," why not let 
them have a little foretaste to begin with? I under- 
stand that enemies of the dog have succeeded in 
causing heavy taxation upon all owners of the animals. 
If this is so, then the income to this city must be 
enormous, and I -would respectfully suggest to the 
city government the importance of commencing some 
great public work at once, with the proceeds. A 
public library, or some other educational institution 



Dr. Crow ell. 163 



would flourish under the heavy revenue from such 
a prolific source. 

We wake up this morning, and look out upon a 
snow storm of no mean dimensions, and poor Mary 
Ann who has a few crocuses in bloom under the front 
windows, is in great trepidation for fear they will 
freeze, but I tell her I think they won't, which piece 
of philosophy she doesn't believe, but keeps peeping 
out at them to see if they are wholly covered up. 
But I comfort Mary Ann with the assurance that if 
her blue crocuses are covered with snow, they will be 
well protected from the dogs, and also from the busy 
claws of our neighbor's three little bantams. 
These pretty fowl are small, but it is marvellous how 
much they can scratch. So we think after all that 
happiness is pretty evenly distributed, particularly 
among the lower order of living things. 

"So we take up the burden of life again, 
Saying only it might have been " 



much worse. 



THE OLD BURYING GROUND, 



Haverhill, April, 20, 1871. 
At your request I have made a visit to the ancient 
cemetery, where lie the remains of many of your 
maternal ancestors. The authorities have forbidden 
any further burials here, and the place has the air of 
neglect and decay. Houses have sprung up all 
around the inclosure, and the surface is cut up by foot- 
paths worn by the busy feet of the laborer as he 
passes and repasses over the sacred mounds, on his 
way to and from his daily toil. But the place is full 
of interest, for here lie the early fathers of old 
Haverhill, whose descendants are scattered far and 
wide over the vast continent. The names of Brown, 
" Mash, " Ayer, White, Walker and other early fami- 
lies that figured so largely in the settlement of the 
town, are plentifully scattered on the brown old stones. 
I read some dates as far back as 1680. A fine marble 
monument has been erected over the grave of Rev. 



Dr. CrowelL 165 



John Ward, the first Minister, and one of the original 
settlers of the town. The resting places of the other 
early ministers are marked by durable shafts and tab- 
lets, while the graves of Mr. Rolfe and others who fell 
with him in the bloody attack of the " savage foe " on 
that memorable morning of the " Lord's day," are 
honored by an imposing granite obelisk, with inscrip- 
tions in Latin and English. Among the curious 
epitaphs I found the following on an old stone, sunk 
into the ground, worthy of the chisel of " Old Mor- 
tality. " For quaintness and novelty it is equal to any 
that find their way into the "Editor's Drawer" of 
Harper : 

" Mr. John Suoddock 
Died February ye 13, 1707 
And in ye 76th year of his age. 
He lived honestly 
All his life 
And died aged 
And never had a wife. " 

Adjoining this old sacred ground is Linwood Cem- 
etery, a place of great rural beauty, tastefully laid out 
with walks and avenues. Many of the lots are fitted 
up with fine granite copings, and adorned with beau- 
tiful memorial tablets. I have been surprised in 



1 66 In Memoriam 



visiting these grounds, not to see any superintendent 
or keeper. People are allowed to enter the enclosure 
on foot or in carriages at all hours, and some of the 
lots are desecrated by stragglers and loiterers, who 
make them the scenes of disgusting revelry, and gross 
obscenity. These abuses should be corrected and the 
proprieties of the place tenderly cared for by those in 
authority. 

The fine weather of the early Spring has met with a 
sharp rebuke from the east wind that has blown fresh 
from the sea for the past week, obliging us to refill 
our coal bin, and hold on to winter garments. I 
don't know how we shall stand this climate. We all 
have coughs and colds, and the other night your 
namesake, Ben, startled us up with the cry of croup. 
This was a new enemy for us to attack, and I hurried 
for a doctor at once. While I was gone, Chloe sum- 
moned a good lady near by who is " excellent in 
sickness, " and she kindly administered a little honey 
and goose oil, and Ipecac, and Hive Syrup internally 
with pepper and mustard and kerosene oil externally. 
These simple remedies did very well until the doctor 
came, who at once took hold of the case in a positive 
manner. I am happy to say that the poor boy is re- 
covering from the effects of the — disease. 



SHADE TREES. 

"Open the windows and let in more light. " 

Hillside Farm, June 187 1. 
I do not propose to write a sentimental apostrophe 
to the beauty of shade trees. I shall not talk of the 
lights and shadows, of the dancing leaves with the 
" sunlight shimmering through them in a shower of 
diamonds. " This has been done by poets and school- 
girls, " time out of mind. " I shall yield to no one, 
however, in my love for trees, forming as they do one 
of the loveliest features in the landscape, adding 
beauty and grace to every scene of nature. But my 
purpose is to speak of shade trees in large towns and 
cities, in their relation to the health and comfort of 
the people. Some twenty years ago, we are told, a 
society was formed in Haverhill under the title of 
" The Fraternity of Shenstones, " named in honor of 
an English gentleman who had done much in beau- 



1 68 In Memoriam 



tifying the streets of his own English home by planting 
shade trees. The work of the "Fraternity" was to 
raise funds for the purpose of adorning our streets 
with a variety of shade trees, and this work was done 
with such earnest enthusiasm that nearly all our high- 
ways, and some of our byways, soon bristled with 
maples, chestnuts, lindens and elms. Those saplings 
have now become great trees, forming a shade that 
is almost impenetrable to the rays of the sun, over- 
shadowing homes that should stand out in the light 
and air of heaven, and generating dampness that 
penetrates through and through the rooms and closets 
of dwellings that should be dry and airy. Our streets 
are very narrow and the houses are unfortunately near 
the line of the sidewalks, so that trees planted along 
the margin soon obtrude their branches against the 
walls and windows. We live in a changeable climate, 
subject to sudden oscillations from hot to cold, from 
wet to dry. But we have but few really hot days, 
requiring the shelter of a dense shade. Most of our 
days require us to let the sunlight in, and not to shut 
it out. How has it been during the cool days of the 
past week? Every house surrounded by a thick 
growth of trees has been damp and dark, and chilly, 
and cheerless. 

Enter one of the parlors, and you feel the chill damp, 



Dr. CrowelL 169 



and smell the earth mould, and you cannot disconnect 
the impression received, from the idea of a tomb. I 
venture to say that more ladies take cold by making 
and receiving fashionable calls during such days, than 
in any other way. If we lived in latitude twenty degrees 
from the equator, instead of forty- two degrees, we might 
be glad of all the shade we could find ; but in a climate 
where the cool, chilly days prevail, where the foliage 
is retained through the short autumn days, where the 
sun soon touches his northern solstice, (and even now 
is beginning to take his southern journey,) under 
such conditions, we insist that a dense shade in the 
narrow streets, in front of our dwellings, is in every 
way objectionable. 

We take pride in the rural beauty of our city, but 
at what sacrifice to the health of the women and chil- 
dren who must spend most of the time in the dark, 
damp houses. The men are away at their business, 
and do not suffer, but the women are nearly all invalids, 
and still we wonder at the cause ! 

The " Shens tones " did a good natured and well 
meaning work when they planted the thick rows of trees 
along our highways, and they deserve all praise for 
their desire to beautify our lovely village. Now let 
them do a better work, and, axe and pruning knife in 
hand, go forth and cut down every other tree, and se- 



170 In Memoriam 



verely prune all the rest. We make this plea in be- 
half of the health and vigor of our growing population. 

We are glad to notice that some of the residents of 
Summer street are setting a good example in this 
direction, by cutting down the dark gloomy evergreens 
that have long encumbered their grounds. We wish 
our worthy Mayor would follow the example, and show 
us the beautiful proportions of his gem of a house, by 
thinning out his young forest. It is pleasant to note 
the fact, that gentlemen who have lately erected fine 
houses have not placed shade trees too near them. A 
fine lawn with a few trees is far more desirable, and 
even beautiful, than small grounds covered with trees, 
with damp sods and dead grass underneath. 

If we ever have a public park, we hope it will not be 
conscientiously planned in the shape of a square or 
parallelogram, with a flat surface, and trees all in a 
row, like platoons of soldiers. 

Let a place be selected, if possible, having a little 
diversity of surface, and containing a few native forest 
trees, which may be left to stand just as nature planted 
them. In a word, let it be made to conform some- 
what to nature. The projectors of Central and Fair- 
mount parks have had the good sense to preserve all 
the beautiful things of nature in those splendid grounds, 
and the rural retreats, and romantic haunts are sought 



Dr. Crow ell. 171 



by all who love nature in her quiet moods, and her 
serener aspects. The beauty of our rural cemeteries 
is often marred by the unsightly grading of private lots. 
If a lot happens to be located on a gentle declivity, 
instead of conforming to the beautiful slope, the lower 
side is terraced so as to secure a level surface, and the 
natural, sunny slope is broken up by abrupt banks of 
earth, or an ugly stone wall. The consequence is that 
the rural element is destroyed, and the artificial and 
the pretentious intrude on every hand. 

" Bury me in the sunlight upon a sloping bank," 
said a dying poet. And we have often felt like mak- 
ing the same exclamation, while visiting the dark, dank 
enclosures, made doubly gloomy by the impenetrable 
shade of superfluous trees in our cemeteries. 

And so our plea is for light, and warmth, and air. 
As much as we love rural beauty, as much as we ad- 
mire trees and plead for their growth in proper places, 
we love health, and cheerfulness, and youthful beauty 
far better. The great study window of Charles Dick- 
ens' Library opened to the south, and there, amid a 
flood of light that would have blinded most men, he 
wrote his immortal works. And may we not attribute 
the uniform good nature, the healthy nervous organi- 
zation, the human sympathy of the great novelist, in 
some degree, to this habit ? Let us learn a lesson from 



172 In Memoriam 



this example, and receive all the happy genial influ- 
ences that come from the beautiful forces of nature. 
Let the light stream into our darkened parlors and warm 
up the paintings upon the walls. Let it penetrate our 
dining rooms, our sleeping apartments and kitchens. 
Let the children play in it without fear of ruining their 
complexion, and let the pale women enjoy it, and 
dare to look healthy and robust. And above all let it 
enter our hearts, that we may carry cheerful faces on 
the street, in the cars, at our business, and in our 
homes. 



THE OLD MEETING-HOUSE. 



It is a brown, old structure, standing upon a little 
ridge apart from the roadside in a quiet country-town. 
Its plain, honest front, unadorned by tower or 
steeple, has withstood the storms of more than a hun- 
dred winters, and the returning summer sun still lights 
up the little panes of glass in its many windows. 

It is a bright, calm day in June, when we pass it for 
the first time, and we pause before the well-worn 
threshold to inquire into the history of this relic of 
by-gone generations. 

It was built by the fathers in a former century for 
their simple and austere worship, and it stands to-day a 
type of the stern, honest and sincere character of the 
builders. Strong, plain and upright, it served its pur- 
pose well, and the rigid walls tell no tale but that of a 
steady, uniform purpose. 

We enter by the weather-stained double doors. 
How deserted ! Ruthless hands have been at work ; 
the great, square pews, in which the honest yeomanry 



174 In Memoriam 



sat or reverently stood through long hours of worship, 
have been swept away. But the lofty pulpit and over- 
hanging sounding board still remain ; the rude bench 
upon which the sober deacons sat is unmolested, and 
the communion-table hangs its semi-circular leaf in 
front. From this dismantled pulpit the godly pastor 
proclaimed the strong doctrines of Calvin to a people 
who believed in law, and who abided by the ethics of 
a rigid, personal accountability. They exalted God, 
and they had respect unto His law, and they felt the 
weight of sin upon the human soul. And so were 
they swayed by these simple and sublime themes ; they 
were scored into their lives, they became a part of 
themselves. 

We ascend the creaking gallery-stairs, and, seated 
by a narrow window beneath the rough oaken beams 
that support the ceiling, we listen to the story of the 
first pastor who ministered to the waiting congregations 
in this now deserted sanctuary. 

He was a man of the pure New England type. 
Learned, pious, simple and revered ; the pastor and 
teacher of the flock, who went about doing good, and 
who, in the spirit of the Master, sacrificed his life in 
his lowly ministration. 

A poor child of his flock was sick with an unknown 
malady, and the good pastor, in ministering to the wants 



Dr. Crowell. 175 



of the little sufferer, becomes a victim to the malignant 
disease, then so little understood. He dies in an ob- 
scure house, isolated from his family and his people, and 
in the darkness of the night he is carried to his lonely 
grave by a few daring and faithful members of his parish. 
From his study window, his afflicted wife watches the 
solitary procession by the fitful light of the lanterns, 
as it winds its way through the wooded path of Tuck- 
ertown. 

Grand old man ! What a life, what a sacrifice, and 
what a name for the coming generations to cherish ! 

Through the glimmering light of the June sun, as it 
streams across the wooded slope, I can see the white 
marble slab that marks his grave, and I think of the 
power that such lives have wielded in the formation 
days of this nation. How strong, direct and con- 
vincing ! 

As we leave the deserted old sanctuary, we are 
grateful for this episode in our busy lives, and we re- 
joice and are thankful amid the generous hospitalities 
of a typical New England home. 

We take a parting look at the long line of lofty hills 
that skirt the horizon north and west ; we breathe fresh 
draughts of air from the boundless fields and woods ; 
we sigh once more for the sweet simplicity of country 
life ; and on the morrow we take up the burden of life 
again in the busy city, with new strength and hope. 



BOYS. 



" How many a father have I seen, 
A sober man, among his boys, 
Whose youth was full of foolish noise, 
Who wears his manhood hale and green !" ■ 

In Memoriam. 

Not the prodigy who can talk at six months, walk 
at ten months, repeat the " Busy Bee," at two years, 
and recite the multiplication table at four years of age ! 
Neither do I speak of the proper, goodish boy, who 
never soils his pinafores, or frock, or trousers ; who 
prefers to stay in the house and sew patchwork, and 
crochet, rather than to tumble on the green, or climb 
a tree for fun or nuts \ who never laughs or makes a 
noise on Sunday, but "sits still" in his little chair, and 
looks at his colored pictures of the infant Samuel, or 
Daniel in the lion's den, as any young saint should. 
No, I leave these anomalies for the writers of Sunday 
School library books to work up into heroes, while I 



Dr. Crowe IL 177 



attempt to speak a word in behalf of the representative 
boy as you find him in the house, in the street, and 
in the field. 

Every boy born into the world has certain inherent 
rights, which are as truly his, as are any of his preroga- 
tives of the father. 

He has a right to live, and move, and have a being. 
He has a right to his share in the comforts of home, 
in the products of his father's wealth, or industry, or 
prestige of inheritance. He has the rights belonging 
to a thinking, aspiring soul, — with aspirations and 
longings that reach far into the future. And yet how 
many treat boys as though they were merely dependen- 
cies, suffered \o come to the table and share in the com- 
forts of home, but made to feel as though this 
were only granted by special favor, for which they 
should feel constantly thankful. How many boys 
have felt mean, and ashamed when coming to the 
family board, because of the constant prating of father 
or mother of how much they do for them, and that by 
and by they must "shirk for themselves." How 
many boys leave home — actually " run away " — be- 
cause of the bitter tauntings about laziness, and in- 
efficiency, and how different it was "when / was a 
boy." 

I know of men immersed in business, who keep 
their families out in a country residence which they 



178 In Memoriam 



visit at night, just giving them time to scold at the 
boys, and find fault with the servants, and then off 
again in the morning, leaving all the care and respon- 
sibility to the poor, care-worn mother, who is early 
broken down by discharging duties which should be 
shared by the husband. And then the unreasonable 
man wonders why his boys do not take more interest 
in his business matters, and why they are so shy and dis- 
trustful of him. 

What did you ever do to interest them ? Did you 
ever confide in them? Did you ever talk to them 
about your business, explain some of its peculiar ele- 
ments, and show them how certain things were done? 
Do they know how you make your money, or have you 
ever had a familiar talk with them as to what they 
must do if you should be suddenly stricken with apo- 
plexy or death ? No, they are kept in ignorance of all 
this — treated like helpless dependents, and then 
blamed for their weakness and inefficiency. 

The father must early take his boys into his con- 
fidence, if he would have them feel an interest in the 
things which rightfully belong to them. Let them 
know and feel that they are interested in your 
prosperity, and sharers in your successes. Let them feel 
the honest pride that comes from conscious ability and 
self-reliance. 

How often are boys, by mistaken and ruinous 



Dr. Crowell. 179 



kindness treated like helpless babies ! They are not 
allowed to go out of the range of the parental eye, 
and they grow up to manhood, unused to the world, 
timid and tame, because an anxious mother (or father) 
was fearful that some accident might befall them. 

Encourage boys to indulge in all vigorous, dexterous, 
healthful sports and pastimes. Let them row, and 
swim, and ride horseback with ease and freedom, and 
do not oblige them to steal the opportunity to practice 
these recreations, and carry on a deception because 
of your unreasonable timidity. Boys cannot be taught 
too early the lesson of self-reliance and self-protection. 
The dexterity shown in the sports of youth manifests 
itself in various ways in after life. Who are the cunning 
artificers, the nice mechanics, the bold inventors, 
the skillful artisans but the dexterous and bold and 
ingenious boys whose parents indulged them in the 
reasonable use of all the appliances of youthful pas- 
times ! 

But we would not be understood as advising 
nothing but sports and amusements. These should 
have their proper place in boy life ; but every boy 
should also have something to do in the form of labor, 
no matter how wealthy his parents may be. He 
should be made to feel that life has stern duties, and 
that he must be a sharer in them. Therefore let every 



180 In Memoriam 



boy have some specified work to do, aside from his 
regular studies, and hold him accountable for it, be it 
ever so simple. How many boys become indifferent 
men because they were never taught the importance 
of having a purpose, in all they attempt. 

And O, anxious, careful, patient mothers, don't de- 
spair of a wayward son, whose course thus far has 
made you fear and tremble for the result ! That boy, 
so thoughtless, and apparently so ungrateful, does not 
wholly forget your kind and loving words of warning 
and admonition. Often when alone does he think of 
you, and feel ashamed of his erring ways. Often does 
he secretly pray for more of your heavenly spirit, and 
thank God for the hallowed influence that has thus far 
sustained him. O, happy parents who are blessed 
with noble, generous, though may be thoughtless, 
careless, wayward boys ; be faithful to your trust, and 
do not let the cares of business, the follies of fashion, 
the slavery of social life, cause you to forget your first 
great duty to them. Make them a study, that you may 
know how to meet their caprices, their peculiarities of 
temperament, their tastes and proclivities, their aspi- 
rations, and their great moral and spiritual wants. 
Happy are they who have the sweet consciousness of 
having done this ! With what a trust can they leave 
the result to Him, without whose help all our poor en- 
deavors are vain and futile ! 



RESPONSE AT A DINNER 

OF THE 

MASSACHUSETTS MEDICAL SOCIETY 
IN BOSTON. 



Dr. Crowell, orator of the day, responded to 
the following sentiment : " The debt of the medical 
profession to the scientific investigator and specialist." 

Mr. Chairman, 

An eccentric divine once said to his audience, " My 
hearers, there is a great deal of ordinary work to be 
done in this world, and I thank the Lord, there are a 
great many ordinary people to do it. " 

As one of the ordinary workers, I wish to say a word 
in behalf of this great majority, and express thanks to 
these extraordinary workers who do so much for us 
in the way of patient research and investigation. 

I suppose we are all of us investigators in a small 
way. Joe Gargery said he was " oncommon fond of 
reading." Nothing pleased him more than to take a 



1 82 In Memoriam 



book or a newspaper and sit down to a quiet reading. 
"Why, Pip," exclaimed Joe, "when you do come to a 
J, and an O, and say at last, 'here is a J O, Joe,' how 
interesting reading is." And still, Mr. Chairman, we 
should be thankful that we do not have to enter the list 
and fight the dreadful theories of germs and protoplasms, 
and spontaneous generations that claim the attention 
of the profound scientist. We make free use of the 
results of these investigations, and are rich in the pos- 
session of treasures that come to us without the 
tedious process of exploration. 

I don't suppose there is much danger of our falling 
into the delusion of poor old Mr. Casaubon in " Middle- 
march," who with his patient wife, was buried among 
the musty manuscripts of the Vatican Library, inves- 
tigating his pet theories, where he was disturbed and 
awakened by his young nephew, fresh and bright from 
Germany. "What are you doing here, uncle?" 
" Hard at work investigating," was the reply. "Why, 
my dear old uncle," said the nephew, "dont you know 
that these mouldy old manuscripts have long ago been 
translated by German scholars and their treasures 
unfolded to the world?" 

The scientists of to-day may be divided into two 
classes. First, those who teach that the most pro- 
found truth, both of biology and chemistry is, that life is 



Dr. Crow ell. 183 



the result of the aggregation of matter, and second, 
those who hold that there is a principle called vital, 
which exists within the protoplasm and gives it life. 
Without this principle the protoplasm is dead, and 
with it the protoplasm is alive. These two phases of 
evolution occupy the thought, and contribute to the 
discussions of learned bodies at h^me and abroad. 

I don't suppose, Mr. Chairman, that we shall all live 
to see these profound questions absolutely settled to 
universal satisfaction, but we can admire the scholar- 
ship that furnished us with so much suggestion and so 
much interesting speculation. 

The brilliant experiments of Lister and the intro- 
duction of the antiseptic method is a great contribu- 
tion to surgery, but this method has been sharply 
questioned, and recent experiments have shown that 
the Listerium precautions do not always suffice to keep 
out or to destroy the bacteria from surgical wounds. 

How long and sharp and brilliant was the discussion 
between the German Liebig and the French Pasteur 
concerning acetic fermentation, and how vigorously 
did Pasteur measure lances with Pouchette on the 
great subject of spontaneous generation; and how 
persistent were the experiments of Pasteur to show 
admiring students the fallacy of his great competitor. 
We must pay our respects to the specialist who deals 



184 In Memoriam 



with the more subtle forms of disease, and is able 
to treat obscure symptoms with intelligent and skillful 
results : this special practice forms an epoch in the 
history of medicine, and a noble army of enthusias- 
tic young workers is found in all our large cities 
whose services are often of great value to us whose 
attention is given to the more general forms of disease. 
In this respect our profession has made effective ad- 
vance in the study of pathological science, and the 
diagnosis of obscure diseases is one of the triumphs 
of the healing art. We also owe a debt of gratitude 
to the specialist for curing us of a certain kind of false 
modesty in charging professional fees. We country 
doctors were plodding along in the old-fashioned way 
of small charges and long credits, after the fashion of 
this old bill which I show you, yellow with age, which 
belonged to one of my professional ancestors. On 
this bill we find a charge for a visit and medicine to 
Betsey, 25 cents, and visit, call and medicine to baby, 
40 cents. Now these charges became a sort of 
standard for those who came after this worthy old 
doctor, until our metropolitan brethren came to the 
rescue, who received the fee of fifty or a hundred 
dollars for a consultation with such a graceful non- 
chalance as to inspire us with great moral courage, so 
that now we venture to charge two dollars for a visit, 



Dr. CrowelL 1 85 



and from three dollars to five dollars for a consul- 
tation. 

While maintaining the great prerogative of individual 
thought and opinion, let us be grateful to these hard 
workers, remembering the apothegm of the English 
Laureate, that 

" Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers," 

and that broader sentiment 

" Let knowledge grow from more to more, 
But more of reverence in us dwell ; 
That mind and soul, according well, 
May make one music." 



RESPONSE AT THE 

ONE HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY DINNER 
AT A T KIN SON A CADE MY. 



Benjamin Greenleaf was emphatically a product of 
Atkinson Academy. A farmer's boy, with scanty re- 
sources for study, but in whose soul glowed the desire 
for a higher education, comes over from his home in 
West Haverhill in 1805, and seeks the fostering care 
of Hon. John Vose in this time-honored school. 

Happy for him and others like him that such 
schools were founded by pious men, where for a small 
compensation, the ambitious youth could in some de- 
gree realize the dreams of his boyhood. Here young 
Greenleaf remained two years, when by hard study 
and by eking out his limited means by teaching school, 
he was able to enter the sophomore class in Dartmouth 
College. He always cherished a deep affection for 
this Academy, and to the last of his long and event- 
ful life he delighted to honor his preceptor by at- 



Dr. Crowe 11. 187 



tributing to him whatever of success he had attained. 

In 1 814, a year after his graduation, Mr. Greenleaf 
became preceptor of Bradford Academy, and it was here 
that he began to develop those marked characteristics 
that gave prominence to his future career. His intense 
earnestness and his sharply defined individuality 
gave to his teaching an impulse that could not fail to 
impress any thoughtful student, while to the lazy and 
shirking he was a terror indeed. He had no particu- 
lar methods in his teaching, but adapted himself 
to the conditions of the hour, and the swift changes 
and surprises in his mental and physical discipline 
were as unique as they were novel and ludicrous. No 
boy could long remain under his care without being ef- 
fectually stirred up in his methods of thinking and 
acting, and if he had an empty head, it did not take 
him long to become conscious of it. 

He was quick to detect ability in a timid shrinking 
boy, and ready to help and encourage every honest 
endeavor to obtain an education. We are apt to 
judge men by their eccentricities, and certainly Mr. 
Greenleaf possessed many striking peculiarities of 
character. But there was a richer and a deeper side to 
his nature which those who knew him best understood 
and loved. His kindness and gentleness were mani- 
fest in many delicate ways, and his generous nature 



1 88 In Memoriam 



found expression in timely and substantial assistance 
to poor students struggling to obtain an education. 

His scholarship was much more varied than was 
generally supposed, for, although a great mathemati- 
cian, he was no mean classical scholar, while 
his knowledge of standard literature was exten- 
sive and discriminating. As author of a popular series 
of mathematical works, he stands preeminent as a 
pioneer in the important work of making text-books 
for the common schools. The introduction of Green- 
leaf's Arithmetic into the schools formed a new era in 
teaching, and, whatever may have been the faults of 
this bold venture, it is certain that the hard, knotty 
sums it contained gave an impulse to many a boy and 
girl, and stirred up many a teacher to quickness of 
thought and newness of life. 

Mr. Greenleaf stood upon the border-land that 
divided the old from the new in matters of education. 
He was one of the first to lecture on popular science, 
in Essex county, and his illustrations of astronomy, 
chemistry, and mineralogy, although crude and sim- 
ple, were based upon the fundamental principles of 
scientific investigation. He was in no small sense an 
investigator, and his ingenuity in improvising apparatus 
for his humble laboratory was worthy of all praise. In 
estimating such a man, no one can fail to discern the 



Dr. CrowelL 189 



rich and varied elements that made the sum total of 
his character. Terse, simple, transparent, rare in 
humor, sharp in repartee, constant and true in his 
friendships, childlike and trusting in his piety, "He 
was a man, take him for all in all, we shall not look upon 
his like again." 



ABOUT SCHOOL EXHIBITIONS. 



Hillside Farm, June 187 1. 
The season is upon us when, from time immemorial, 
colleges, academies and 'seminaries of learning" hold 
their annual commencements and exhibitions. We 
never could quite understand why the hottest time of 
the year should have been selected for these great 
literary feasts, but so it is, and we must each go up to 
our dear old alma water, while the thermometer is 
among the eighties, and pay our vows with becoming 
reverence and respect. There is something very im- 
posing, and mysteriously impressive in a college com- 
mencement. The meetings of the alumni, the arrival 
of anxious parents from the country, to witness a 
momentous event in the history of a darling son, the 
gathering of young ladies in all the glories of floating 
lawns, charming bonnets, and fluttering fans ; ushers 
with rosettes, and white gloves, and batons ; the sen- 
iors full of dignity, and inspired with the mysterious 



Dr. Crowell. 



191 



influence of the hour ; the Faculty and the Corpo- 
ration, and the Trustees, and the distinguished guests 
in glorious array upon the platform — so far removed 
from ordinary mortals, as to seem to breathe in 
another atmosphere, and to feed on the food of the 
gods ! No, we can't give up all this. With all its 
show and sham, it has too much of the real and 
the poetic about it to let it pass by as old and conven- 
tional. But of late years, our common schools, and 
especially our High schools, have adopted the college 
custom, and we have, every year, cheap representa- 
tions of college commencements in the form of 
what are termed exhibitions. 

We have great gatherings of anxious and delighted 
mothers, and former graduates, and "friends of edu- 
cation, " and leading citizens, with white waistcoats 
and shiny heads, seated in imposing array upon the 
rostrum. We have the teachers with care-worn, tired 
faces, we have the scholars in nervous disorder, and 
above all, we have the school committee themselves — 
that epitome of learning — looking so wise, especially 
during the Latin salutatory and the Greek dialogues. 
Now it would be a good deal to give up all this pomp 
and circumstance, but, in the language of the senior 
Weller, " whether it is best to go through so much to 
get so little," is a question of some importance. 



192 In Memoriam 



We are speaking in general terms, and do not speci- 
fy any particular school. And the question comes up, 
do these annual parades do justice to the schools, or 
to the public ? Do they give correct information in 
regard to the literary merits of the children, or do 
they not rather increase the vanity, and deceive the 
public by the specious glitter and parade of super- 
ficiality ? Here are boys and girls who have just fin- 
ished four years of hard study in a classical school. 
They have gone through the curriculum of study, and 
have the sanction of authority in their graduation. 
But what is exhibited 'in the exercises of the day? Is 
it the result of study? Do we observe any of the 
literary culture, or the scientific training, or the clas- 
sical drill of the course gleaming through every exercise, 
and giving character and thought and substance to 
the dissertations and themes? 

One would suppose to listen to most of the themes 
of the boys, that the object of the schools was to in- 
struct in political economy, for we have such subjects 
as "The duties of the American citizen," "The les- 
sons of the hour," " Our political dangers," etc., dis- 
cussed with all the assurance, and in the cheap style, 
of the veteran politician. And then the girls choose 
such suggestive themes as, " What the stars are say- 
ing," "Golden dew on life's fair morning," "Beauty 



Dr. Crowe IL 193 



of the soul," and we feel after hearing it all through 
year after year, that we are really not getting ahead 
much, with all our modern helps and expensive ap- 
pointments. 

Why can we not have subjects discussed, suggested 
and elaborated by the course of study ? Take history 
for instance. What splendid themes in the historical 
characters of Elizabeth's reign, or the later epochs 
of French history ; of Marie Antoinette ; of Princess 
Lamballe ; of Madame de Stael. Or take the brilliant 
history of English literature ; what wealth of thought 
in the great writers of the seventeenth and eighteenth 
centuries. Or take the sciences, which form such an 
important part of the course of study. How fascinating 
the researches of the men of science in all ages, and 
how much have they done to further the application of 
the physical forces in the various departments of me- 
chanical skill ! How busy is thought to-day in all that 
relates to law, and force, and vital action ! Why not 
take hold of some of these topics, instead of bringing 
forward the vapid and worn out rhetoric of political 
caucuses, and cheap periodicals? 

We have no right to expect a rigid examination at 
these public exercises, but we have a right to require that 
all the original papers be based upon the results of the 
four years' study, and that the excellence of the instruc- 



194 In Memoriam 



tion shall be apparent in everything brought before the 
public. The style of language — the purity, the ease, 
the elegance, the pronunciation, the enunciation, the 
elocution, the general bearing in manner — these all be- 
speak the character of the school, and reflect the meth- 
ods and the style of the teachers. Ask any thoughtful 
young man who has been through this show, and he 
will tell you that, as far as he was concerned, it was a 
piece of superficial absurdity, which he could have 
"got up" in six weeks, independent of the course of 
study. We are not so absurd as to require that aU 
the learning of the course should be condensed in one 
exercise, but we do contend that whatever is done 
should show that time and money have not been 
wasted in the attempts to educate our children. Let 
us look at this matter good-naturedly, and see if we 
cannot have a beautiful and simple, ( because natural ) 
exposition of the literary and classical studies of our 
High Schools, rather than the dignified, and solemn, 
and deceptive, ( because unnatural ) displays, now so 
fashionable and popular. 

With all the splendid appliances for the education 
of youth, with all the vast expenditure, the increased 
demand for teachers of sound learning and elegant 
accomplishments, and with the ready co-operative 
spirit of the public, we insist that our schools should 



Dr. Crow ell 195 



not be superficial, nor in any way encourage vanity, or 
sham, or self-conceit. 

And we would kindly advise the " Rural Teacher" 
who published the feeble words of her infant scholars 
in the last Gazette, not to hold up such a false incen- 
tive to her scholars again ; for nothing could be more 
unwise than to teach children, however young, to place 
a false estimate upon their abilities. We hope, in all 
charity, that other suburban teachers will not be am- 
bitious for such notoriety. 

The lesson cannot be learned too young, that the ob- 
ject of study is not to make a display and carry on 
a show of deceit through life, but to help us to dis- 
criminate between the true and the false, to make us 
stronger and wiser in all that pertains to the activi- 
ties of life ; to make life a consistent experience, 
where the forces of our being shall combine to lift us 
up higher in all that is desirable to know and to do. 



CHURCH MUSIC— A FRAGMENT, 



The noblest gifts of art should be consecrated to the 
worship of God as the offering of gratitude and love. 
And this rule will apply with special force to the divine 
art of music. Why not offer to the praise of God the 
noble conceptions of genius in the department of sa- 
cred song ? Why should we wait for special occasions 
in which to hear the sublime strains of the great compos- 
ers, and be content to listen to the crudest and dullest 
music in the services of the sanctuary ? We speak the 
truth when we say, that the service of song in the House 
of God is in many instances an unmeaning service, with- 
out tenderness, or feeling, or aspiration. But the advo- 
cates of congregational singing will persist in their war 
upon well trained choirs. They had rather join in 
the unmeaning drawling of random voices through the 
shaky chorus of some "good old tune," than listen to 
the tender expressions of pious sentiment, by voices 
trained and cultivated in the perfection of art. Now 
we have no objection to congregational singing if the 



Dr. Crow ell. 197 



congregation only know how to sing. But it is a la- 
mentable fact that congregations do not know how to 
sing ; and still we find many who stoutly advocate this 
cheap service and dare to call it praise. I have no 
doubt that many good souls feel well, while quavering 
through " Dundee " or " Ward." There is dear Mrs. 
Jones for example, — one of the best of women, who 
has been under the delusion for fifty years or more, 
that, with all her other virtues, she can sing. And so 
she lifts up her shrill, piping voice, and shakes her little 
head, and beats time with her book, and, I have no 
doubt really enjoys it very much. I greatly respect the 
feeling, but I can't say that I am edified by it. And 
then too, there is Major Sharp, on the other side of 
the house ; he is a pleasant fellow to meet almost any- 
where, and I like him ; but by some curious device he 
manages to produce a reedy sound in his vocal utter- 
ances of praise, and I must say, in all charity, that I 
don't like it. And my good deacon also, whom I 
greatly love and revere, he also is in favor of having 
everybody sing, and so he sings with great fervor, but in 
his anxiety to see that all goes well, he looks around 
over his spectacles, upon the congregation, and there- 
by loses a line, and so sings in his own time, and to 
his own edification. The deacon has a good time, but 
at what expense to the feelings of the sensitive, he 



198 In Memoriam 



never can know. I greatly fear that he has not fully 
appreciated the application of the essentially 
Christian axiom — " Love thy neighbor as thyself." 
We can imagine the effect of one of Luther's grand 
chorals under the sublime influence of a thousand 
voices, well trained, and attuned to the noble con- 
ception of the great reformer. Such results are not 
produced without study and much hard, patient prac- 
tice. When our congregations are ready for such 
preparation for the service of song, then we shall be 
ready to accept congregational singing as the fitting 
expression of thanksgiving and praise. 



OVER. 



The Summer. Yes, over ! The lengthened days, 
the early sunrise, the golden pomp, and the mystic 
beauty of cloud, and sky • the light and shade of lake 
and wood, and mountain top, have passed over to 
sober Autumn. And the chill of early evening, and 
the gray mists of morning, foretell the coming on 
of frost and snow. To the meditative mind these days 
come not without the pensive lesson of change and 
decay. 

But it is not the object of this paper to indulge in 
the luxury of sentimental repining, nor to cherish the 
vain regret over wasted energies, or the departing 
charms of nature. It is with feelings of infinite relief 
that I record the fact that the flood of letters from 
vagrant tourists has also been arrested by the depart- 
ure of the sun toward his southern solstice. Thanks 
to nature that there is a limit to her seasons, so that 
we can find rest from the weary words of men and 



200 In Memoriam 



women, who cannot travel ten miles from home with- 
out telling it to the world through the newspapers. 

Who cares to know that Peter Stone left home on a 
certain day in a rail-car or in his own private convey- 
ance, and stopped at Bite Tavern, where he slept on a 
hard bed, and had hash for breakfast ? And why need 
Miss Elmina inform us that all the ladies of her party 
wore cape bonnets, and linen suits, and that the gen- 
tlemen consisted of a member of Congress, two col- 
lege students, a lawyer, and a "divine" young 
clergyman? Why should we be regaled with all the 
small jokes that passed between the members of the 
party, and be refreshed with the number of sand- 
witches that Sam Stay ate on a pic-nic climb among 
the hills ! 

O, men and women who will write about yourselves, 
remember that other people are not quite as much in- 
terested in the details of your Summer trips as your 
own party was, and cease, I pray you, in your endless 
prattle about little nothings which should die with 
their birth. Do you suppose there is anybody this 
side of Alaska who doesn't know every nook and 
corner of the White Mountains ? Why will you keep 
writing about the Notch, and the Profile and the Tip- 
top house, and the railroad up Mt. Washington? And 
yet, year after year the stream of travel flows, and the 



Dr. CrowelL 201 



stream of ink follows, and we hear the oft repeated 
tale in every form and style known to literature. If 
somebody would strike out a new route, and tell us 
about that ; if we could learn where to get better views, 
or where to find more attractive inducements to travel, 
we should be very thankful. 

If a party of amateur sailors take a maiden cruise 
along the coast, forthwith comes forth a conscientious 
copy of the log-book, filling a page of our meagre coun- 
try paper, in which all the delicate refinements in- 
cident to sea-sickness are chronicled ad nauseam. 
We are gravely told that on such a night, to the in- 
finite merriment of the party, Joe Bangs sang a song, 
and forthwith turned deadly pale, and could sing no 
more ; that Tom Long couldn't relish his chowder, 
and that Bill Jones did not, and could not, stay in his 
berth, owing to the ground swell. 

Now these facts are doubtless of much interest 
to the parties concerned, but I don't want to be 
plagued with them in my weekly paper. 

And the distressing records of Jenkins at the fash- 
ionable hotels ! Of the distinguished arrivals of 
snobby parties with big trunks and fine equipages ! 
Of the hops in the Grand Parlor, and the lovely Miss 
B. in the blue tarletan, and trimmings to match, and 
the dashing Miss D. in floating muslin, with pearl or- 



202 In Memoriam 



naments, or the wealthy heiress, straight from New 
York, with point lace and diamonds enough to buy 
out the whole town. Who is not sick to death of such 
flippant twaddle, and who is not tempted to stop his 
paper where such correspondence prevails? 

How the great West has been riddled with tourists, 
and how they have sent home their dreary accounts of 
the rail-roads, present and prospective, and given a 
mass of dry detail sufficient to fill a book as large as 
the "Unabridged;" and these, I am sorry to say, are 
not confined to the Summer, but spin out through the 
lengthened year. 

What care we to know what civilized people eat, or 
drink, or wear, while on a summer tour? If they will 
tell us what they learned, and what new things they 
saw and enjoyed, we will be thankful for the addition 
to our stock of this department of knowledge. Why, I 
have read a tourist-letter, where the writer told what 
newspapers were read on a certain day, gave a minute 
list of the articles eaten at lunch, and took occasion 
to make personal allusions that must have disgusted 
the subjects of them, unless they were as stupid and 
silly as the writer. The trouble with these scribbling 
tourists is, they don't forget themselves, and so they carry 
self into all their descriptions of nature. They mix 
themselves with mountain , lake, river and sky, and 
a sorry work they make of it. 



Dr. Crow ell. 203 



And so I can but rejoice that summer with all her 
glories is fairly over, so that we may have rest from 
these self-complacent lovers of nature as seen by their 
own reflection. 

Do you tell me that these letters will all be gathered 
up, and placed before the world in the shape of books 
for next summer's reading ? Very likely, but then I am 
not obliged to read them or even see them ; but in my 
daily and weekly papers they are constantly obtruding 
upon my sight, and mockingly challenging me to read 
them, and in my weakness I confess that I too often 
yield, as under the power of a Haschish charm, lulling 
and stupefying. 

Next summer, if these people must write or die, let 
them strike out into a new field ; let them go to Brit- 
ish America, and describe Lake Winnipeg, or give us 
some graphic account of Mt. St. Elias. But don't, I 
most earnestly entreat of you, give us a re-hash of the 
"old, old story" about places as familiar to us all as 
Plain Point or Powder-house hill, and keep I pray of 
you, your little personal details to yourself, and don't 
tell all your secrets to the world, that knows not and 
cares not a straw about you, nor any of your "re- 
lations." 



Poetry. 



POEM READ AT THE 

TWENTY- FIFTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE 
MONO A Y E VENING CL UB. 



On the dull tympanum of my sluggish ears, 
Comes the dread mandate- of my worthy peers : 
" Give us a poem, something rare and good, 
Salted and peppered, fit for giant's food. 

We're old and strong, so now the story tell, 

Tersely and briefly, wittily and well." 

Like the poor wretch who pulls the galley oar, 

In vain I strive on Fancy's wing to soar ; 

I lift my eyes up to the mount divine, 

And plead for rapture from the sacred nine ; 

I ask Apollo for a single strain, 

And seek the Delphic oracle in vain. 



208 In Memoriam 



But while I linger, doubt and fear between, 
I hear a whisper, " Try the old machine ; 
Oil well the axle, limber up the crank, 
Brace up the muscle of elbow and of shank, 
Leave the Greek gods upon Parnassus' height, 
And grind out something English here to-night." 
So here I am, obedient to your call, 
And bring the best I have, machine and all. 

Once on a time, so all the stories run, — 
" Oh, don't say that ! 'tis time you had begun," — 
When chill November's surly blast — " No, no ! 
That's Robbie Burns ; you must not twist him so "- 
Auspicious was that bright November day, — 
"That's better, all is right, now turn away," — 
Those wise men thought, as only wise men can, 
And from the germ evolved the mighty plan, 
The Monday Evening Club, propitious name, 
With gracious promise, into being came. 

Like that rare beverage mixed with cunning art, 
Enough of sugar, and enough of tart, 
A little stick to stir, and make it keep, 
Not too much water, lest you thin it cheap, 
So here we mix ingredients good and strong, — 
The lawyer, pleading for the right — and wrong ; 



Dr. Crow ell. 209 



The parson, preaching, ere he is aware, 
A sermon made for sinners in his care • 
The man of science, with his law and gas ; 
The funny fellow, with his wit and " sass ; " 
The learned pedagogue, who, if he please, 
Can teach us, every dunce, his A B C's ; 
Merchant and banker, with their bonds and stocks 
As mystic as their combination locks ; 
And ^Esculapius, giving us his best, 
When soothing anaesthetics lull to rest. 

What realm of nature remains unexplored ? 
What depth of science that has not been bored ? 
How swift the tongue and brain to speak and think ! 
Here has our Darwin found the missing link ! 
Through subtle forces of the earth and air, 
How surely have we seen the " Whence, and What, 
and Where ! " 

What pity that our charter ne'er permits 
Discussion over party politics ! 
Oh, grave mistake, that we can never try 
To cure the sickness of theology ! 

Oh, could we make the " civil service," rules, 
And mildly call the other party fools ! 



2io In Memoriam 



Oh, could we ask what Grover is about, 
And tell him how to turn the rascals out ! 
Could we but settle Calvin with a blow, 
Or send Arminian sinners down below, 
We'd end the iEschatology and stuff, 
And cut the first probation short enough ! 
What joy, what peace, what harmony divine, 
Could we all winter fight it on this line ! 
Rejoice, O mortal ! of these themes bereft, 
A few short terms fair Science still has left ; 
Smoother than rhythm ever said or sung, 
These limber words come tripping from the tongue 



1 Paleontology, Archaeology, 
Ozone, and Bacteria ; 

Anthropology, Erpetology, 
Equinia, and Zoolglaea. 

Astroscopic, Atmologic, 

Bacillus, and Mychography ; 

Micrococci, Diplococci, 

Anthisis, and Cosmography. 

Neoplastic, Bioplastic, 
Microbes, Erpetology ; 

Atomatic, Psychomatic, 
Lacunae, Electrology. 



Dr. CrowelL 211 



Amphibiological, Anthropological " — 
" Stop, stop ! the old machine is out of gear ! 
' English, you know/ is what we want to hear ! " 

Behold our scribe ! a marvel sure is he, 

Adept in science, art, philosophy ! 

What things profound his records make us say ! 

His facile pen our blunders sweeps away, 

His flowing rhythm makes us eloquent, 

His English grammar tells us what we meant; 

And when we listen to his record fair, 

We smile to find what learned men we are. 

But then, his figures are a terror too, 
He'll add, subtract, divide, and table you ; 
Search errors out like microscopic germs, 
And scatter fractions to their lowest terms. 

As on that scroll some gray palimpsest wrought 
In lines of light a new and living thought, 
So from the rude alembic of the sage, 
Retort and crucible transform the age. 
With such rare alchemy does our chemist hold 
The mystic rod, transmuting all to gold. 
Teach us the sesame, open wide the door, 
Let us the temple's inner court explore 
That we, dull mortals, may the story learn, 



212 In Memoriam 



How salts and acids into shekels turn. 
We mix the crude ingredients with our hand ; 
Re-action vain ! — residuum of sand ! 
While rising thin from our divining-glass, 
The illusion vanishes in form of gas. 

Him, him, we hail, whose honors lightly rest, 
Our mentor, eldest, youngest, and the best ; 
Whose code of ethics rests on sacrifice, 
Like Epictetus, rigid, just, and wise ! 
Spare him, O Time ! in thy relentless swing, 
The crowning glory of perennial spring ! 

Within our mystic, protoplastic cells, 
The fertile force of evolution dwells. 
Adown the placid Merrimack it glides, 
To that fair city washed by ocean-tides, 
Enfolds its' genius in its strong embrace, 
And buds and blossoms with an airy grace. 
The inner sanctum Heralds forth its power, 
Its editorials cheer the morning hour 
In ringing Saxon words, that kill with fright 
The other fellow in his pygmy might. 
Scholar and author, student and divine, 
Statesman, and devotee at Mammon's shrine, 
Yield to the spell in that old, dreamy town, 
And help to " rub each other's angles down." 



Dr. Crowe IL 213 



" Westward the course of empire takes its way " — 
" That's old ! " — But Lawrence is not old, we say. 
She feels the plastic force in all her cells ; 
How quick her budding into promise swells ! 
What power and wealth her pent-up waters hold ! 
The million spindles weave the cloth of gold, 
The meanest rags to creamy, parchment turn, 
The ceaseless fires in blasting furnace burn, 
The vital force the throbbing engine feels, 
And sends it whirling through a thousand wheels. 
O busy city ! where the brain and hand 
Send fruits of labor over sea and land. 
Thrice happy they, by rare selection blest, 
Who with the charmed number find a rest 
Amid delights of the idyllic ease, 
Vouchsafed to mortals in such hours as these ; 
When we cast off the badge of daily strife, 
And feel the pulses of a higher life, — 
To sit with Plato at the Athenian shrine, 
And talk with Shakspeare in a strain divine ; 
Or on the expansive wings of Science soar, — 
With Young and Langley tread the starry floor, — 
Or sit at learned Hoadley's feet a while, 
Whose wit and wisdom, heart and brain beguile. 
O happy club ! exalted in degree, — 
The M.D., D.D., C.E., and M.C. ! 



214 I n Memoriam 



Whose upright judge releases without bail, 
Nor lets the sheriff put us into jail. 

In that fair city bordering on the " Hub," 

With youth and freshness dwells the model club, 

So near the centre of that magic rim 

Whose broad circumference takes the whole world in. 

O club of merchants and of millionaires ! 
Calm and serene 'mid fights with bulls and bears, 
While we despair to match or sample you, 
The philanthropic Howard comes to view, 
And gives the secret of your glad success. 
So you, as we, are ready to confess, 
"Variety's the spice of life." That's true, 
( 'Twas William Cowper said it. ) So have you 
Thrown in for pepper and for savory spice, 
The same old handy fellows in a trice. 
For what, I pray, is this same trio good, 
But just to season other people's food ! 
Then grind down Blackstone to a powder fine, 
And swallow old Hippocrates like wine ; 
Sprinkle the homilist like ginger in, 
An antiseptic for besetting sin. 

Oh ! let my pipes awake a nimbler strain, 
And the full bellows swell the loud refrain ; 



Dr. Crowe IL 215 



Join all the forces in the tuneful noise, 
While we resound the wisdom of the boys. 

SONG. 

The boys are wiser than their sires, 
Before they're half done growing ; 

Their passions, purposes, desires, 
Are surely well worth knowing. 

" Where do our fathers go o' nights?" 

( They say to one another, ) 
" We only want to have our rights " — 
" Suppose you ask your mother?" 

The mother mildly shakes her head, 
And says, in sweet submission, 
" Your pa works hard to earn us bread ; 
He goes ( with my permission, ) 

"To rest his brain ( ay, there's the rub,) 
On Monday night he goes to't : 
It is a very, harmless club, 
The minister belongs to't." 

"A club ! O mammy, how you stun, 
Astonish, and amaze me ! 
He said if ever I joined one 
At Harvard, he would haze me. 



216 In Memo riant 



" And has he gone and done the thing 
He'd never let this kid do? 
Suppose I boldly do the thing 
My father slyly did do ? 

" Pray, mother, tell us what they do 
When they all club together? 
How can they kill the winter through, 
In spite of zero weather? " 

" Do, silly boy : they talk, I s'pose, 
And ventilate their notions ; 
The things your dear old father knows 
Would surely fill both oceans." 

" Of course they never eat nor drink ? 

( Dyspepsia, you know, ma." ) — 
" You saucy 'fellow, don't you wink : 

Late eating hurts your poor pa. 

" And so they have a simple spread — 
Some charlotte-russe and ices, 
Some fancy cakes and rolls of bread, 
And oysters baked with spices ; 

" A little chicken-salad too, 

And frozen pudding — flavored; 
Of sherbets, jellies, fruits, a few, 
And croquettes nicely savored. 



Dr. Crowe IL 217 



" And as for drinks, well, let me see ; 
Some chocolate and cocoa, 
And Java, Mocha, Oolong tea — 
(No water, 'cause it hurts so." ) 

A concert brief among his men, 
( The boys are highly mettled,) 

Some words of wisdom spoke, and then, 
Behold, the thing is settled. 

O brave young club ! we give you cheer, 
You understand the game now ; 

Without your cheery presence here, 
The evening would be tame now. 

The problems that we dare not solve, 
You settle quick and nicely ; 

The doubts that in our minds revolve, 
You analyze precisely. 

Each young divine that comes to town, 

You gobble in a minute ; 
You finish things, and get renown 

Before we scarce begin it. 

Oh ! quick to act, and clear to think 

On every abstruse question, 
Do learn, if e'er you eat or drink, 

To keep a good digestion. 



218 In Memoriam 



O brave young club ! live well and long, 

And emulate the sages. 
May quarter-centuries send in song 

Your fame adown the ages. 

Another whisper " Isn't he most done ? 

How long, I pray, has this machine to run? " 

Be patient, friend, the grinding soundeth low ; 

Upon our heads the almond-blossoms blow, 

But in our hearts the old-time passion burns \ 

We love the sober and the gay by turns. 

How quick the golden years have taken flight ! 

What thrilling memories crowd the soul to-night ! 

We reach our hands, our earnest words implore, 

Sweet voices answer from the other shore. 

It matters not if life be here or there, 

Since love, and force and truth are everywhere. 

Grand symphony ! the harmonies all blend, 

Andante's opening, and the scherzo's end ! 

The allegro thrills us, while the largo slow 

Chastens and softens, as the numbers flow. 

What matters if we're told to blow or strike? 

In the finale all are great alike ; 

As worthy he who strikes the drum a blow, 

As Paganini with his magic bow ; 

For in the sweep of God's stupendous plan, 

The great are they who do the best they can.. 



THE MAY STORM ON THE MERRIMACK, 

1808. 



Long years ago, in blooming May, 

A vessel launched from her sloping way, 

With a lowly dip, and a graceful slide, 

Into the Merrimack's flooding tide. 

A noble brig, she rides the stream, 

Now bright with the early morning's beam, 

While her brilliant sides, with rainbow glow, 

Are painted afresh in the wave below. 

1 Now man your oars, my men, and row, 
And take the ship in stately tow, 
Adown the tide to meet the sea ; 
And as ye pull, so strong and free, 
Let hill and wood and wave reply, 
To the wild music of your cry ! " 
So spake the master \ and every oar 
Was quickly seized, and all the shore 
Re-echoed with the wild adieu 
That cheerily rang from the stalwart crew. 



2 20 In Memoriam 



O, freshly green the island lay, 

As round the " Point " they curved "their way, 

And floated past the lofty height 

Of wooded hill, that met the sight 

At every sudden curve and bend. 

The " Port " is near, the journey's end 

Is reached. Now leave your noble ship, 

For other hands shall soon equip, 

With mast and spar and snowy sail, 

Her stately form, to breast the gale. 

Homeward, against the ebbing tide, 
Our dozen men save one, now ride, 
Hoisting aloft the great, square sail, 
To catch the rising northeast gale. 
Past Salisbury Point they scarce had sped, 
When, rounding the fearful " Lion's Head," 
The wind and rain upon them dashed, 
And rent and shivered the sail and mast, 
While wave, and sky, and earth, and air 
Spoke the dread language of despair. 
" Quick, seize your oars," brave Colby* cries, 
" See how these waves like ocean rise ! 
Work for your lives, or we cannot float, 
In such a gale, in a shallow boat ! 
I'll hold the helm, so do not fear 



^Nicholas Colby, 



Dr. Crowe IL 221 



While past the Rocks I safely steer ; 

For I have sailed Pacific seas, 

And know the currents, and know the breeze 

All over the world, so hold not back 

While breasting a storm on the Merrimack !" 

He scarce had spoke, when an awful blast, 
Like a thundering torrent swept them past ; 
The sea-like waves in surges rise, 
And the trembling bark now helpless flies, 
Plunging and tossing in fearful shocks, 
As she rushes wild to the fatal Rocks. 
A crash, and a shriek, and a fearful moan ! 
The shattered wreck on the wave is strown, 
And the struggling men now strive in vain, 
With oar and spar the shore to gain. 
They falter and sink before the storm, 
When Colby, lifting his sinewy form, 
Above a fragment of floating plank, 
Called aloud to his men 'ere twice they sank, 
' Cling to me, my arm is strong to save ! 
By the help of God we will breast this wave." 
With a strong death-beat he strikes for land, 
When Ingersoll, lending a friendly hand, 
( By chance on the shore in the morning dim, ) 
With a sailor's grasp drew the wretched in. 



222 In Memoriam 



Then Colby in tears, his strong arms crossed, 
"We jive are saved, but the six are lost! 
O, wretched tidings to carry back 
To the peaceful homes on the Merrimack ! " 
****** 
The sweet May air is calm and still 
On Sabbath morn in Haverhill. 
The apple blossoms drifting down 
The narrow lanes of the little town, 
Lie softly on the fragrant grass 
In snowy borders as you pass. 
Lo, down the street in solemn tread 
Strong arms are bearing on the dead, — 
Six manly forms, with bier and pall, — 
And a tender silence over all. 
And when the parson bowed his head, 
And, " dust to dust," had meekly said, 
His lifted hands he reverent spread, 
" Give God the praise, these live," he said. 
" To Colby's arm the power he gave, 
These four to rescue and to save." 

And so this deed, forgotten long, 
I weave to-day in rhyme and song, 
And give the honor, and give the due, 
To courage strong, and to courage true. 

Haverhill, June, 1873. 



AN OCTOBER IDYL. 



0, perfect day, so restful, calm, 

That lures me from my dull retreat, — 

The distant woods look soft and warm, 
And kindly tempt my willing feet. 

The maple lifts her ruby spire, 
The amber birch illumes my way, 

The ferny sumacs, touched with fire, 
And tints of morn, my steps delay. 

For loving hands are waiting by, 

These gems to hold with tender care, 

With ferns that 'neath the mosses shy, 
Hide from the frost their silken hair. 

Tread softly as we enter here, 

By this old path so dim and sweet, 

Lest rustling of the dead leaves sere, 
Scare the brown partridge at our feet. 



224 In Mem or i am 



The nimble chipmunk hears our tread, 
The blue-jay screams in vale below, 

While from the pine tree overhead, 
With noisy clamor calls the crow. 

At every pause we hear the fall, 

Of brown nuts loosened from the shell, 

Or, listening, catch the distant call 
Of waters from their rocky dell. 

From sombre hemlocks far away, 
That clothe the hill-side at our back 

Comes, faintly clear, the hound's low bay, 
Or echoing peal of rifle-crack. 

We listless, wander, — when, behold, 

In radiant beauty, richly fair, 
Kenoza shows her face of gold 

Resplendent in the dreamy air ! 

Enfolded in a veil of mist 

That floats around with airy grace, 
Like dream of the Evangelist — 

I see a glory in her face. 

Fairer than Ethiop's jewels show 
The radiant gems upon her breast, 

The ruby and the amber glow, 
And violet-tinted amethyst. 



Dr. Crowell. 225 



Beyond the far outreaching cliff, 
That gaily shows in wave below, 

The rippling wake of tiny skiff 
In glory breaks the sunset-glow. 

O, mingling charm of lake and sky ! 
In dreamy rapture as we gaze, 
The changing colors fade and die 

Or float away in filmy haze. 

O, dear ones, come and reverent stand, 
Ere fades this pageant like a spell ! 

Kind Nature lifts her beckoning hand, — 
She knows her loving children well. 

Alas, what blessings round us fall, 

Which, stubborn blind, we will not see ; 
Dear Father, rend the mystic pall, 
We cast between ourselves and thee. 
Oct. 1872. 



A MEMORY. 

REV. B. F. H. 

An ear attuned to all glad sounds ! 

The chorus of the morn, 

The music newly born 
With each glad day's exulting swell ! 

The heavenly harmonies, 

The glorious symphonies, 
That wake the soul to blissful life, 
And calm the passions, quell the strife 
That in our grosser natures dwell. 

An eye that swept the firmament ; 
Gazing intent by night, 
Beyond our narrow sight, 
Among the suns of viewless spheres ; 
Or with a keener gaze 
Among the common ways, 
Revealed the beauty of ethereal hue, 
That to our blunted, dimmer view 
But simple tint or ray appears. 



Dr. CrowelL 227 



A silvery cadence to the ear ! 
In loving tones now falling, 
In earnest words now calling, 

Or raised in stern rebuke of sin. 
O, voice of saintly sweetness, 
Our joy in strength or weakness, 

Let us again thy music hear 

In words that spake nor doubt nor fear, 

Lifted to call the wanderers in ! 

O, subtle power of heart and brain ! 

O wit so rare 

Beyond compare 
With words that fill with noise the times. 

The dull and mean 

With satire keen 
Were tossed aside in playful scorn ; 
While words for truth, divinely born, 
Fell clear and sweet as Sabbath chimes. 

Return, O noble soul again, 

Light these dull ways, 

And fill the days 
With the large influence seen in thee. 

With earth content, 

On passion bent, 
How can we reach thy lofty height, 



228 In Memoriam 



That shone in heaven's effulgent light, 
Like Alpine summit, grand and free ? 
August 10, 1875. 



IN MEMORIAM. 

M. W. W. 



O, dear ones, burdened with long hours of sadness, 

With anxious waiting in the night-watch lone, 
List, through the stillness comes a voice of gladness — 
" Servant of God, well done." 

' Well done, beloved, now so sweetly sleeping, 
After the day's eventful toil and care, 

Take now thy rest, for never pain nor weeping 
Disturbs my loved ones there." 

Once, when my home was darkened with a sorrow 
Too deep for language in its bitter woe, 

No gleaming ray gave promise of the morrow — 
Our dear, first born lay low. 

She entered then, and, like a benediction, 

Filling our rooms with sunshine and with bloom, 

She lifted up our hearts from dark affliction, 
And gave us joy for gloom. 



230 In Memoriam 



In wretched homes where want and sickness hover, 
And sin and anguish make their drear abode, 

She shed her light, and spread her full hands over 
The helpless "poor of God." 

How full of love her great heart's welcome greeting 
Unto her home of plenty and of peace, 

Where all rejoiced in hours alas, too fleeting — 
Soon, soon such pleasures cease. 

O, memory, hold her dear remembrance dearer, 
And freshly keep that presence in my heart, 

That from the soul by faith illumed clearer, 
The vision ne'er depart. 

Now through the light I see the angel-faces, 

In raptured sounds I hear the chorus run — 
The seraph voices ringing through the spaces — 
" Servant of God well done." 

Haverhill, March 4, 1872. 



BELLE. 

Two years ago 
A star shone on our home, 

And lighted up our hearts with joy. 
In radiant glow its beams were thrown 
With lavish splendor, bringing no alloy 
Of pain or woe. 

How all our air 
Was stirred by that warm light ! 

The flowers looked up in lovelier hue, 
The wild birds carolled with delight, 

Sweet music trembled all the spaces through : - 
Our star was there. 

And children smiled 
With faces radiant then, 

And songs broke out in rapture sweet ; 
Gay voices echoed through the glen, 
The swinging hare-bells rung where waters meet 
In forests wild. 



232 In Memoriam 



And we were blest. 
Our house was filled with light, 

And every room was fairer then, 
And perfume rich stole through the night. 

As when in dreams the dear ones come again - 
The loved and best. 

This lovely star 
Was all too fair for earth, 

Its light was for a purer sphere ; 
We prayed that He who gave it birth 

Would not recall it from its mission here, 
To shine afar. 

One early morn 
Our house seemed dark and still, 

The fair and lovely star was dim. 
We heard a voice the spaces fill — 
" Shine, star of love, shine and rejoice in Him, 

Where light is born." 

With vision bright, 
We look into the blue 

And shining firmament so fair ; 
Lo, 'mid the radiance, streaming through, 
Our star shines out among the loveliest there 
In endless light. 
Haverhill, April, 1872. 



IN PEACE. 



-!'•*- 



Behind the wavy hills, in rosy light, 

The May-day sun went down in beauty rare, 

And on the floating clouds in splendor bright, 
The tints of glory shone refracted there. 

From hills of verdure came the cool, sweet air, 
Laden with fragrance of the orchard bloom ; 

The twilight splendor lifted up the care 
Of life's hard labor in the stifled room. 

Through lanes, soft shaded by the tender green 
Of young leaves springing from the graceful stem, 

With white flowers glistening in the moonlight sheen, 
With passive hearts, we rode from haunts of men. 



234 In Memoriam 



We heard the sound of voices soft and clear — 
The feathered songster trilling his sweet hymn ; 

While from the marshes, piercing on the ear, 
Came the shrill piping of the early spring. 

O, sights and sounds to lull the soul to rest ! 

We catch the influence of the dreamy hour, — 
Our grossness slumbers, and our thoughts, the best ; 

Take tone and shape from Nature's plastic power. 

So we pass on, enchanted by the spell 

That wraps our fancy in its magic charm — 

He just begun his morning hours to tell, 
While / am toiling in the noon-tide calm. 

We talk of life, so full of thought and power — 
The forms and manners of this busy age ; 

We talk of books, and fill the happy hour 
With gems of fancy from the poet's page. 

We turn us homeward, and a silent prayer 

I fervent offer to the God of love. 
I lift my head amid the radiant air, 

And raise my moist eyes to the stars above ; 

" O, Father, keep this dear youth at my side 
In thy strong arms of mercy and of grace ; 
O, may he ever in thy light abide, 

And in the Master's vineyard fill his place." 



Dr. CrowelL 



2 35 



i May his young life, so full of promise now, 
Grow full of honors as the ' days go on/ 
And when the lengthened years shall shade his brow, 
Let memory cheer him with a work well done" 

May 21, 1872. 



THE BURIAL. 

B. F. G. 



Out from the homestead into the day, 
Tenderly brothers, O bear him away. 
Bear him away in the sunlight so sweet, 
With foreheads uncover'd and soft tread of feet. 

Walk by him closely, O brothers so true, 
The heart that is resting beat warmly for you. 
Walk by him firmly, O men as ye are, 
Guard his last journey with tenderest care. 

Hushed is the voice often blended in song, 
Loosen'd the hand held in friendship so long : 
The lov'd of your number, the joy and the pride, 
How passive his rest now — and ye by his side ! 

Rest ye awhile, brothers, this is the place, 

Let the warm sunlight fall sweet on his face. 

Here by this hill-slope, O tarry ye now, 

While the south wind of April plays over his brow. 



Dr. Crow ell. 237 



We leave you, brothers, in silence and tears, 

In the pride of young manhood, the strength of your 

years ; 
Alone must ye be for the last rite of love — 
The song-birds around you, the blue sky above. 

How calmly he rests on the warm sunny slope, 
In the place where ye left him in silence and hope, 
Where ye laid 'neath the tenderest April sod, 
A form that shall shine in the likeness of God. 



April 23, 1869. 



THE OLD SHIP -YARD — 1835. 



Just below the " Baptist Hill," 

Sloping toward the river side, 

Where rolls to-day the busy tide 

Of labor's ceaseless ebb and flow, 

The ship-yard stood — we knew it well ; 

I almost think I see it still, 

With shapeless timber, and smoking tar ; — 

The hewer with his broad axe armed, 

Hewing away with measured swell, 

From Bradford shore that echoed far. 

O, pleasant sounds in morning time ! — 

The sawyers, sawing in pit so deep ; 

The heavy blows on the wooden pin 

That held the huge, oak riblets in ; 

The sound of anvils, making chime 

With hammer, and beetle, and sledge's sweep 

And ever anon the musical cry 

Of carpenters, lifting a timber high, 



Dr. CrowelL 



2 39 



With " hand over hand " in unison all. 

O, what delight to the dreamy boy, 

To creep and climb o'er the staging tall, 

Deeming it then his highest joy, 

To watch the growth of the mammoth side 

Of the noble ship, as day by day 

The steaming planks encased her bows, 

That swelled aloft in graceful pride. 

And now the calkers fill up the seams 

With oakum and tar, till all her beams, 

And decks, and hatches are water tight. 

Behold, upon the shaven side, 

The painter, drawing in brilliant rows 

The rainbow hues in living light, 

That soon shall show upon the tide, 

When she has kissed her native sea. 

The time has come, we've waited long 

To greet; the glorious "figure-head," 

With green and gold, in leaf and vine, 

Is lifted up with tender care, 

Forever in its place to shine ; 

While, o'er the street, the bow-sprit strong, 

Holds up its pride in lofty air. 

'Tis launching day, the flags are spread 

From stem and stern with streamers free ; 



240 In Memoriant 



The busy yard is all astir 
With sights and sounds we love so well ! 
The useless staging ruthless falls \ 
With mighty heave the anchors rise ; 
The notes of warning rise and swell 
As loud and clear the master calls. 
From roof, and tree, and platform high, 
The people lpok with eager eyes, 
And town and parish proudly vie 
To raise a shout to welcome her. 

The tide is flood, now drive the wedge, 

To lift her weight from shore and stay ! 

The master stands with lifted sledge 

To knock the " after block " away. 

O, what a thrill is on the air, 

And every eager lip is stilled, 

As, coyly waiting, fresh and fair, 

She proudly scorns, her form to stir. 

But now the joyful air is filled 

With shouts of cheering — "there she goes !" 

And low she dips her mighty keel, 

And parts the wave in graceful sweep, 

'Mid cheers of gladness, peal on peal, 

The shattered champagne seals her name ; 

Adown the bows the anchors leap 

With thundering crash of cable chain ! 



Dr. Crow ell 241 



Behold her now, in mid-stream lying, 
" So like a duck," the captain says \ 
The banners o'er her clear deck flying, 
While round her side the light wake plays. 

O, speed the ship, as down she floats, 
Through shallow stream to meet the sea ! 
O, welcome her with peaceful notes, 
For lo, she comes to dwell with thee, 
With thee, old Ocean, till her sides 
Are dim and worn with storm and brine, 
And ceaseless ebb and flow of tides ! 

I close my eyes ; the vision fair 
Comes like some dim, half vanished dream 
The ship-yard rises, and the throng 
That shouted in the Autumn air, 
When the fair ship first kissed the stream, 
Make music like a childhood song. 
Old voices come with saintly swell ; 
My dream is gladdened with the sight 
Of far-off faces, and the night 
Is mellow with the pensive note, 
So silver- sweet, of " Baptist bell ; " 
I hear the cadence gently float — 
The sounds of childhood sadly sweet, 
In melting tones my senses greet. 
March 1873. 



IN OLDEN TIME. 



I love the tales my grandsire told, 
Of early days of fame and glory, 

When men were strong, and deeds were bold, 
And legends, rich in song and story. 

I sit beside his ample hearth, 

With room for every welcome neighbor ; 
Here bubbled up good cheer and mirth, 

The kind relief from daily labor. 

From out the chimney's wainscot-wall, 
A little shelf came nightly sliding, 

To hold dear grandma's candle tall, 

That showed her needles, deftly gliding. 

The old queen's arm hung up so high, 
My great-great-uncle used in battle, 

At brave Crown Point and famous " 'Ti," 
'Mid savage shout and bullet's rattle. 



Dr. Crow ell. 243 



That hollow gourd with handle strong, 
So safely on the (k dresser" lying, 

For drinking-cup served well and long, 
At Breton's Isle, for sick and dying. 

The china in the beaufet showed, 
With India baskets made of willow, 

And through the glass door bravely glowed 
A stuffed and varnished armadillo. 

My grandsire sits among his friends, 
And feels his power as sole dictator ; 

His cheery voice its influence lends 
To each good soul the sweetest nature. 

For he was born in Newbury- town, 

And knew the names of rich and gentry ; 

His fathers to the sea went down 

And brought home silks and gems in plenty. 

He told of Offin Boardman's skill, 

On his staunch ships, with India trading ; 

Of his good wife of wondrous will, 

Who sold each vessel's precious lading. 

He knew the High Street dwellings all, 

With India goods in every story, 
And heathen gods on stair and hall, 

With portraits, brave in paint and glory. 



244 I n Memoriam 



He told us of the man who made, 
The giddy leap from Federal steeple ; 

Of Holland Shaw,* who dearly paid 
For stolen shirt, before the people ; 

Of "great Lord Dexter's " silly fame, — 

i His foolish pranks to money turning, — 
Who wrote a book with vulgar name, — 
Sent warming-pans to tropics burning. 

And then with tone and look more grave, 
And sweep of arm, with gesture tragic, 

He told us of the heroes brave 

On Bunker's height, in language magic. 

For he was there, a stripling then, 

Who did his best for Newbury's glory ; 

He cut the bread for the thousand men 
Whom Prescott held in breastwork gory. 

And there a soldier brave he knew, 

As ever served on field or picket — 
A colonel and a surgeon too — 

And great in both — good Doctor Brickett. 

♦Holland Shaw, for stealing a shirt from " Stephen Coffin 
over the river," was paraded through the streets of Newbury- 
port, with the stolen garment tied to his back, and amid the 
sound of drums, and the deriding shouts of the people, he pro- 
claimed his theft at the corners of the streets. He preferred 
this mode of punishment, rather than a public whipping. — 
[Greenleaf s Diary in History of Newbury.] 



Dr. CrowelL 245 



He stood by General Putnam's side, 
Where deadly balls came wildly flying, 

From British ships in sullen pride, 

Near Charlestown Neck, below them lying.f 

He falls beneath the raking fire, 

The brave, old Putnam near him lying ; — 

His soul still lifted with desire 

To serve the wounded and the dying, j 

He lives, and lo, in camp and field, 

In deeds of love, and deeds heroic, 
With strength and faith that never yield, 

He wins the General's name historic. 

Behold him now in peace again, 

In his old home beside the river ; 
His honored scars, his honored name, 

O, cherish, Haverhill sons, forever ! 

fThe famous frigate "Somerset" was one of the "British 
ships " that covered the landing of the British troops. She was 
afterward wrecked on the coast of Cape Cod, and fragments of 
the wreck have recently been discovered. 

JCol. Brickett, of Haverhill, was standing by the side of Gen. 
Putnam outside the redoubts, in the early part of the action, 
when a cannon ball struck the plank upon which they were 
standing and knocked them both down. Dr. Brickett then re- 
paired to the north side of tbe hill and attended to the wounded. 
He suffered from the effect of the wound to the end of his life. 
[History of Haverhill, page 392.] 



246 In Memoriam 



Through street and lane he makes his round, 
To homes of rich, and lonely dwelling; 

In heat and cold so faithful found, 
He hears the tale that grief is telling. 

In after years the " Father " came 

Through all the land in stately honor ; 

Rich blood had sealed the country's name, 
And peace and plenty smiled upon her. 

Adown the street that Presence came, 
With escort grand and bugles blowing \ 

The old men muttering low his name, 

The maids with flowers his pathway strewing. 

At " Harrod's Tavern," brown and low, 
He paused awhile for night's refreshing, 

First waving to the crowd below 

With kingly hand, a father's blessing. 

The morning dawns ; from far and wide, 
The people come, both sire and daughter ; 

They crowd the green and mossy side 
Where flows the river's peaceful water. 

The boat lay moored at " Ferry way," 
Bedecked with flags and streamers gaily ; 

The people knew that no delay, 

Would mar the plan he measured daily. 



Dr. CrowelL 247 



The bugles sound ! " He comes," they cry, 
Down Water street he rides so slowly, 

Past noble dwellings lifted high, 
And humble cottage roofs so lowly. 

And proudly calm, with sword in hand, 
See General Brickett nobly riding, 

In front of ail that escort band, 

Self-poised, erect, and self-confiding. 

The chief arrives ; at given word, 

All " halt " before the crowded landing • 

One wave of General Brickett's sword ! 
Behold each man bare-headed standing ! 



The boat moves slowly from the land, 
Now moist with flood-tide gently laving ; 

See Washington majestic stand, 
His chapeau to his people waving ! 

The people raise a stifled cry, 

A cheering shout, but half bewailing ; 

The fishing-smacks send back reply, 
And dip their scanty flags in hailing. 

" Hush," " stop," " for shame," brave Brickett cries, 
And lifts his battle sword in anger ; — 

" Look, look on him and feast your eyes, 
Insult him not with vulgar clangor ! " 



248 In Memoriam 



A stillness hangs on wave and wood, 
Sublime and sweet in its completeness : 

The people feel the silence good, 
And full of eloquence in meetness. 

The noble cortege fades from view, 
Among the Bradford woods receding, 

And every heart sends up anew, 

The words of blessing and God-speeding. 

Room for these names of good renown, 
On glory's ample page historic ! — 

The Greenleaf name of Newbury town, 
And General Brickett, the heroic ! 

Haverhill, Jan. 1873. 



POEM READ AT THE 

BI-CENTENNIAL OF THE BRADFORD CHURCH. 

Through the dim vista of the centuries 

A vision clear unfolds before my eyes, 

Rich in the mellow tints some master paints 

On face divine of prophets and of saints ; 

Or, when on broader canvas we behold 

The horizon's glory in its flush of gold, 

When hill, and lake, and wood throw back the gleam, 

The after-glow of day's refracted beam. 

Upon the river's bank the village stands, 
'Mid quiet openings, and fertile lands. 
Stern, rugged men their homes have planted here, 
The men who seek no rest and know no fear ; 
Who suffer long for truth and conscience' sake, 
Who form no creeds that they themselves will break. 
Plain, simple men, who daily walk with God, 
And fling defiance at the oppressor's rod , 



250 In Memoriam 



Amid their hamlet home a house they raise, 
Rude, strong and homely, where God's praise 
Ascends, awhile men clutch their old king's-arms, 
Waiting on God, but quick for war's alarms. 

The years roll on. Upon the other side 

Of that broad stream, whose waters cal m divide 

The pleasant lands, behold another town 

Lifts up its modest head, and like a crown 

Adorns the brow of the encircling hills. 

From that old seaward town, whose record fills 

An honored page, they come, who, with strong hands 

Lay the foundation of these " Merrimack Lands." 

Ere yet a Church of Christ was gathered here, 

These men and women on Lord's day appear, 

In the old house on the Pentucket side, 

To hold communion at the holy tide. 

Then spake the pastor of the Haverhill flock, 
The learned, grave John Ward, who like a shock 
Of ripened corn stood in his fourscore years, 
With trembling voice, and pale face wet with tears, 
" Go forth, my children, blessed of the Lord, 
Build ye a church, established on his word, 
Bow in meek faith before his just decree, 
Stand in the strength of Christ who makes you free ! " 



Dr. Crowe 11 251 



Thus in the fear of God this work began. 
The youthful Symmes, devout and holy man, 
Was set apart, by prayer and fasting long, 
Teacher and Pastor, and, by faith made strong, 
His forty years of earnest labor bless 
His people with the works of righteousness. 

O, age of simple faith and quiet ways, 
Give back again the sweet Arcadian days ! 
When humble labor filled the yeoman's hands 
With golden harvests from his rocky lands. 
When the good housewife, with deft fingers, plied 
Her willing task, the busy wheel beside. 
When buxom damsels on the sampler wrought 
Those homely maxims, now, alas ! untaught. 
When, gather'd round the ample, glowing hearth, 
Home voices mingled in good cheer and mirth, 
When country Squire, in striding through the town, 
Received the meek obeisance of the clown, 
And children grouped along the village street, 
The reverend pastor's smiling face to greet. 

Calm and serene, through twice a hundred years 
This Church of Christ her early faith reveres. 
No preacher, in this pulpit called to preach, 
A weak, diluted gospel cared to teach ; 
No rich usurper, owning half the pews, 



252 In Memoriam 



Has ever tried to ventilate his views, 

And keep the minister " in durance vile " 

To give him chance to hold the reins awhile ; 

No crazy ranter, with a better way 

To save poor sinners than to " watch and pray; " 

No awful threatener of the wrath of God, 

Who loves himself to hold the .avenging rod ; 

No starveling pedant with his rigid rules, 

All iron-clad, from cloister and from schools ; 

No new disciple, with a scanty grain 

Of modern science in his little brain ; — 

Nay, none of these have here dissension wrought ! 

But truth instead, such as the Master taught, 

And messages of love in mercy sent 

To every lowly, burdened penitent. 

O, happy church, that has no " crooked sticks," 

That knows no jars in party politics ! 

Whose wakeful deacons think no sermon long, 

Whose leading singer never trips in song ! 

O, blissful pastor, when his people pay 

His quarter's salary on the very day ; 

Whose ladies, sewing for the Jew or Turk 

Ne'er stitch a social scandal with their work. 

Thrice happy parish, where the past enshrines 

With fondest pride the names of old divines ; 



Dr. Crowe IL 253 



Whose early record bears the deeds of them 
Who grouped those stately letters, " A.B.C.F.M." 
Whose richest pages glow with living flame 
Of Annie Judson's dear, heroic name ; — 
Great pioneer in that immortal band, 
The star of hope to distant Burmah's land ! 

Him first we hail, who when his work was done, 
Bequeathed his spotless mantle to his son ! 
Here the sweet singer, Parson Allen taught, 
Here Ingraham poured out his glowing thought. 
Bowed with the weight of four score years and ten, 
The saintly Hoadley lingers among men. 
Lo, like the Patriarch, o'er his staff he bends 
And Apostolic words in blessing sends. 
Names precious still these later days have blest, 
O, faithful servants, early called to rest i 
The learned, patient and devout Monroe, 
And he, strong preacher, with Isaiah's glow. 

Upon the hill in yon historic school, 
Preceptor Greenleaf holds his rigid rule. 
Through the dim years his face again I see, 
Mark those gray eyes intently fixed on me, 
Meanwhile some stubborn task I blunder o'er, 
Or " speak a piece " upon the forum floor. 
Strong and incisive, both in thought and speech, 



254 In Memoriam 



Quick in his wit, by nature apt to teach, 
His smile we love, but tremble at his nod, 
Laugh at his jokes, but smart beneath his rod. 

In that old room, across the entry way, 

A stately woman sits in queenly sway 

Above a realm excluded from our sight, 

Save when some favored boys chance to recite 

In Milton's mighty epic ! then they go 

Into that presence awkwardly and slow 

And there a " Paradise Regained " they find. 

But should some luckless wight, with absent mind 

Stumble and blush in parsing Eve's lament, 

Quickly he's banished, through the entry sent, 

His heart all tingling with revulsive pain, 

And Paradise is lost to him again. 

O, rare Preceptor, learned, quaint and true, 

How many hard and knotty sums he knew ; 

Yet in his life, or in, or out of school, 

His parson and his doctor were his rule. 

In both he trusted and in both believed — 

A bitter potion, or a bitter creed. 

Yet should the parson mix, by slight mistake, 

Scripture and Shakspeare, with emphatic shake 

Of that great head, with whisper strong, 

To all the nearest pews he'd say, " thafs wrong." 



Dr. Crowe IL 255 



Preceptor and preceptress, those old halls 

Have long since vanished. Statelier walls 

Arise, secure on learning's broader base. 

But time, nor change shall e'er efface 

The lines, that chiseled by your deed and thought 

Into this life of ours are nobly wrought ! 

But, ah, what tongue or pencil e'er can trace 

The mighty record of the Kimball race ? 

From out the myriad faces, one I see 

Lifted serene, in holy charity. 

He walked with God, and loved his fellow men, 

Who, when reviled, answered not back again ; 

Whose hands, unstained by petty trick or fraud, 

Polluted not the vessels of the Lord. 

Type of a race that God has deigned to bless, 

Whose feet are in the ways of plenteousness, 

O, name prolific, prosper and increase. 

And fill the coming centuries with peace ! 

What words of honest praise for him await — 

The true and tried, physician good and great ! ' 

With what impelling force, what purpose strong, 

His work of half a century moves along. 

With what a subtle power his life has wrought 

Into the very fibre of our thought. 

O, men and women of the coming age, 



256 In Memoriam 



Embalm this name, a precious heritage. 
To children's children yet the story tell, 
" 'Twas here he lived, so wisely and so well ! " 

Dear elder church, not thus serene has been 
Thy checkered story, told by pious men, — 
How on that First Day morn of bitter woe 
The brave Rolfe perished by the savage foe ; 
How thy old walls received those dreadful shocks 
From teachers counted not quite orthodox. 
How Barnard left the Athanasian creed, 
And thought Arminius equal to his need ; 
How, in his turn, the fervid Abbott preached 
That by good works salvation might be reached \ 
How the mild Dodge in wisdom tried to hold 
These varying forces in his restless fold. 

Then Phelps arose, young, strong and eloquent, 
Who took the stern old creeds that Calvin sent, 
And hurled them naked at the people's heads • 
Who tore all opposition into shreds, 
And, with more zeal than wisdom, thundered down 
The wrath of God upon the little town. 
From out this bitter strife the church uprose, 
Strong and serene above her direst foes. 
Good men stood forth with true heroic names. 
Behold among them, tireless Deacon Ames ! 



Dr. Crowe IL 257 



Whose wiry shoulders every burden took, 

Who read his pastor like his spelling book, 

Who loved and honored and believed him true, 

And still, the right reserved to scold him, too, 

But thought whene'er he " changed " for half a day. 

The other parish good round boot should pay. 

O, matchless worker, show us by what power 
You filled appointments at the unvarying hour, 
Held up the timid, made the lazy work, 
Pitied the feeble, goarded on the shirk, 
Helped out the sexton, made the singing go, 
But ne'er was known to pitch a tune too low ! 
Unlock the casket where the secret lies 
Of giving freely in self-sacrifice ! 
Show us the alchemy that could combine 
That iron will, and woman's heart of thine ! 

Still other lines, O, memory's pencil trace ! 
Behold sweet Harriet Newell's pensive face 
From out the background of the past arise, 
Her young life beautiful in sacrifice ! 
Companion-saint with her who shares with thee 
The Christian wreath of immortality ! 

Calm, strong and wisely just, again are seen 
Those modest brothers twain, who walk serene 



258 In Memoriam 



In the plain, narrow path their fathers trod, 
Their only guide, the oracles of God. 

Fashioned in Nature's rarest, finest mould, 
With keenest wit, and thought of purest gold, 
The sainted Hosford fills his chosen place ; 
A gleam of glory radiates his face ! 
like that disciple whom the Master loves 
Close to the Saviour's heart he lives and moves, 
O, thrice exalted spirit we implore, 
Look out upon us from the heavenly shore ! 
Lift up our drowsy souls from these dull ways, 
And with thy genius fill our later days ! 

I hear a voice : — " The sands are nearly run, 
The work of two long centuries is done." 
On newer canvas with fresh tint appears 
The sharp-lined contrast of these later years. 
Instead of meeting-house so rudely made, 
Behold the fluted shaft, and Greek facade. 
Where frugal toil gave back a scanty fare, 
Behold the merchant and the millionaire. 
The farmer's daughters leave the wool and flax, 
And paint instead on saucers and on plaques, 
And boys too soon the easy lesson learn 
To spend the money that their fathers earn. 
Where once the Doctor rode the country through 



Dr. Crowe 11. 259 



In single gig — behold the coach and two ! 

Two solid sermons on the holy time 

Our sires demanded, with a faith sublime ■ 

In heat or cold, with never nagging powers 

They listened gravely through the lengthened hours. 

The sons say, " thirty minutes at the best, 

Give us more time to study, and digest." 

The second sermon has been set aside, 

And now we have the time to read — and ride ! 

O, rambling fugue, by strident voices set, 
Give way for organ pipe and trained quartette ! 
No more shall fervid deacon dare to raise 
His semi-quavers to his Maker's praise. 
No more shall rosy daughters rise to view 
In bright array along the singing pew. 
Sonorous chest tones revel in low "G," 
And paid sopranos strike the highest "C," 
While fresh composers give us in their score 
Snatches from Martha and from Pinafore ! 

And yet the grand old faith remains the same, 

Proclaimed in the divine Redeemer's name 

By faithful pastors, eloquent and true. 

The Haverhill Church, her eldest neighbor too 

Stand on the Rock the fathers built upon ; 

May coming centuries rise and say — " Well done !" 



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